Skin color can help identify “typical bad guys”

The reactions to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in France have ranged from those who have condemned the terrorists to those like Rush Limbaugh, who claimed that President Obama’s response to Benghazi is partly responsible for the attacks on the satirical French weekly. One of the more outlandish (and bigoted) responses came from Shannon Bream, one of the hosts of Fox News’ Outnumbered:

BREAM: That’s my question about these guys. If we know they were speaking unaccented French and they had ski masks on, do we even know what color they were, what the tone of their skin was? I mean, what if they didn’t look like typical bad guys? As we define them when we think about terror groups.

Ok, so there’s a “typical look” for bad guys. Not only that, but skin color is a good indicator of whether or not someone is a good guy or a bad guy. I can play this game:

Timothy McVeigh. USAmerican citizen. Domestic Terrorist. White guy.
Amanda & Gerad Miller. Anti-police, anti-government WHITE supremacists. In 2014, they took the lives of two police officers in what they considered the opening salvo of a revolution. They had ties to the Tea Party. Oh, and they were white.
The Ku Klux Klan. This WHITE organization has a legacy of terrorism directed at People of Color, especially African-Americans.
In August of 2012, Wade Michael Page entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, determined to kill as many people as possible. This act of domestic terrorism took the lives of 6 people. This xenophobic, neo-Nazi is, as you can see, a white guy.
Scott Roeder. Forced birther and white man currently serving a life sentence for the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009.
Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski aka the ‘Unabomber’. Between 1978 and 1995, he planted or mailed numerous home-made bombs. Took the lives of 23 people. White guy.

If skin color is a good indicator of whether or not someone is good or bad, what does that say about how white people should be treated, given the actions of the above killers?

Shannon Bream ought to familiarize herself with logic. It can be her friend.

Skin color can help identify “typical bad guys”
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Skin color can help identify "typical bad guys"

The reactions to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in France have ranged from those who have condemned the terrorists to those like Rush Limbaugh, who claimed that President Obama’s response to Benghazi is partly responsible for the attacks on the satirical French weekly. One of the more outlandish (and bigoted) responses came from Shannon Bream, one of the hosts of Fox News’ Outnumbered:

BREAM: That’s my question about these guys. If we know they were speaking unaccented French and they had ski masks on, do we even know what color they were, what the tone of their skin was? I mean, what if they didn’t look like typical bad guys? As we define them when we think about terror groups.

Ok, so there’s a “typical look” for bad guys. Not only that, but skin color is a good indicator of whether or not someone is a good guy or a bad guy. I can play this game:

Timothy McVeigh. USAmerican citizen. Domestic Terrorist. White guy.
Amanda & Gerad Miller. Anti-police, anti-government WHITE supremacists. In 2014, they took the lives of two police officers in what they considered the opening salvo of a revolution. They had ties to the Tea Party. Oh, and they were white.
The Ku Klux Klan. This WHITE organization has a legacy of terrorism directed at People of Color, especially African-Americans.
In August of 2012, Wade Michael Page entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, determined to kill as many people as possible. This act of domestic terrorism took the lives of 6 people. This xenophobic, neo-Nazi is, as you can see, a white guy.
Scott Roeder. Forced birther and white man currently serving a life sentence for the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009.
Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski aka the ‘Unabomber’. Between 1978 and 1995, he planted or mailed numerous home-made bombs. Took the lives of 23 people. White guy.

If skin color is a good indicator of whether or not someone is good or bad, what does that say about how white people should be treated, given the actions of the above killers?

Shannon Bream ought to familiarize herself with logic. It can be her friend.

Skin color can help identify "typical bad guys"

LGBT Link Round Up 12.15.14

Michelle Duggar got her way

Fayetteville residents voted in a 52 to 48 percent split to overturn Ordinance 119, a nondiscrimination law that “prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, real estate transactions, city services, business transactions and public accommodations based on ‘race, ethnicity, national origin, age (if 18 years of age or older), gender, gender identity, gender expression, familial status, marital status, socioeconomic background, religion, sexual orientation, disability or veteran status.”

Duggar joined the effort to overturn the law in late summer, recording robocalls that went out to every phone in Fayetteville in which she described LGBT people as a threat to the community.

Ordinance 119 allowed trans men and women to use the public facilities of their adopted gender, a state of affairs that Duggar described in a call as “males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls.”

That’s blatant transphobic fear mongering on the part of Michelle Duggar.  Trans men and women seek to use the facilities that correspond to their gender (e.g. a trans woman using the women’s restroom bc she’s a woman). Trans women aren’t men (just as trans men are not women). That’s a false narrative that Duggar is pushing.  And another thing?  Duggar knows nothing, but nothing…about what she’s talking about. She thinks trans women are just men who dress up as women so they can go into women’s restrooms to sexually assault women and girls.

She. Is. Wrong.

And here is an article at Equality Matters with multiple links to experts who debunk the bathroom myth.

Of course this myth won’t die in Right Wing or fundie circles.  But it needs to be countered every time it rears its head.  And more cisgender people need to speak up and push back against the bathroom myth.  We are the ones with the privilege. We are the ones in the position to help tear down the system that oppresses and discriminates against transgender women and men.

* * * *

 Lifetime ban on gay men giving blood endorsed by FDA

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration’s Blood Products Advisory Panel met to discuss lifting the government’s 31-year-old ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men. Currently, any man who has had sexual contact with another man since 1977—even once, even using condoms—is barred for life from donating blood. The ban was instituted in 1983 in the early days of the AIDS crisis, when HIV testing was still rudimentary. It hasn’t been altered since.

There was some hope that the panel might support a policy recently endorsed by a nearly unanimous Department of Health and Human Services panel, which would allow gay men to donate blood if they’d been celibate for one year. But even that half-measure appeared to be too much for the panel, which closed its discussion without taking a formal vote. (The panel itself can’t make rules, but the FDA takes its suggestions very seriously when issuing guidelines.)

The panel’s refusal to advise replacing the lifetime ban with a one-year deferral—twinned with its craven refusal to go on the record as opposing it—is deeply irritating. Even more galling is its reasoning, or lack thereof: It’s clear that the advisers on the panel saw the campaign to lift the blood ban as more a political crusade than a scientific appeal. (Apparently, they haven’t checked in with American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, the American Association of Blood Banks, and the American Medical Association, all of which oppose the ban.) “It sounds to me like we’re talking about policy and civil rights” rather than safety and science, one adviser scoffed. Another anxiously described lowering the ban as “a leap of faith.”

This language is quite curious. The advisers were not considering abolishing the gay blood ban altogether; they were simply considering replacing it with a new ban that forces gay men to be celibate for a year before donating. Their stated opposition to gay blood donation is a fear that HIV-positive men will donate. But every blood donation is tested for HIV, and the virus can now be detected within weeks of infection. If gay men were celibate for a year before their donation, how could they possibly carry an increased risk for HIV? If they were already HIV-negative prior to a year of celibacy, how could they even have HIV at all?

Parse this chain of reasoning, and the Blood Products Advisory Panel’s true fear is obvious: It is afraid gay men will lie. The advisers won’t support a one-year deferral because they believe gay men will lie about how long they’ve been celibate in order to donate blood. There’s just no other way to justify opposition to a one-year deferral.

The panel’s skepticism might make sense if the FDA took a generally wary approach toward blood donation. But it doesn’t, to an almost comical degree. Under the current policies, a straight person who had sex with a prostitute of the opposite sex can give blood one year later. So can a straight person who had sex with an HIV-positive opposite-sex partner. Straight people who frequently have unprotected sex with multiple anonymous opposite-sex partners face no deferral at all. The FDA doesn’t seem concerned that any of these people will lie about their sexual behaviors.

This serves as a reminder that LGBT rights don’t start and end with the pursuit of marriage equality.

* * * *

Top Air Force official speaks out in favor of transgender personnel in the military

The Hill reported Wednesday that Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said that the military is preparing to reassess its policies against including trans staff and soldiers in the nation’s war machine.

James said in an interview with USA Today, “Times change.”

The ban on trans troops, she said, “is likely to come under review in the next year or so, so I think we should stand by.”

“From my point of view, anyone who is capable of accomplishing the job should be able to serve,” James concluded.

* * * *

 TX pastor calls for the death of us “dirty faggots”.  

Not for doing anything mind you.  Just for existing.  This is homophobia at its worst. This is one human being advocating for the denial of the right to life for millions of people across the planet. He has so effectively dehumanized us that he can talk at length about killing gay people and not be bothered by it. That is so fucking hard for me to fathom. I would never treat another human being as if they were people devoid of rights, no matter how much I hated them.

Pastor Donnie Romero, founder of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, carried on the violent message of his mentor, Pastor Steven L. Anderson – who recently called for gays to be executed to promote an “AIDS-free Christmas.”

In a sermon on Sunday, reported Right Wing Watch, Romero read from portions of Leviticus, which prescribes capital punishment for a variety of sins – including homosexuality.

“I love that part of the Bible, and I’m going to preach that part of the Bible until the day I die, and if I ever stop preaching that part of the Bible, I hope my kids tell me, ‘Dad, you’re going soft on sin. You need to get up there and rip on these queers because it’s only getting worse and worse,’” Romero said as congregants muttered “amen.” “I’m not going to stop doing it. I’m going to preach it all the time because, again, amen to what Pastor Anderson said.”

“I’m not going to let any of these dirty f*ggots inside my church,” Romero continued. “They are all pedophiles. Look in the Bible. Every time it shows the sodomites, in Genesis 19 and Judges 19, they’re always trying to rape and hurt other people. They’re relentless. They are relentless. They are predators and given an opportunity to snatch one of your children, they would do it in a heartbeat.”

Romero draws laughs from his congregation as he recalls several times he harassed strangers he perceived as homosexual — including a transgender woman in line behind him at Walmart, a “bull dyke” with a “Bart Simpson haircut,” and two teenage boys at an amusement park.

“These queers are right in front of us, and they were holding hands, and I said, ‘No, I am not going to be right next to these guys,’” Romero said. “Who knows what they’re going to do on this Ferris wheel?”

Romero said gays should be marked for death, unlike other sinners, because he said God views them as an abomination.

“It’s saying that sodomites are full of all unrighteousness,” Romero said. “That means that there is not a sin that they’re not capable of doing. You think about all these weird sins that it talks about in the Book of Leviticus – animals, child sacrifice. It’s within their reasoning to do all of them.”

I’m curious how much of the Bible this guy hasn’t read.  Does he seriously not know that these “weird sins” he speaks of were also done by heterosexuals?  Hell, his god endorses and commits genocide.

* * * *

Google+ now let’s you define your gender

Among a cascade of updates rolled out on Tuesday, the tech giant announced it will let users list their gender as more than just “Male” or “Female. In fact, according to Google software engineer Rachael Bennett’s post, Google+ users will now have access to an “infinite number of ways to express your gender identity.”

Prior to Tuesday’s update — which began its rollout on December 9 and should now be available to all users — Google allowed users to list their gender as “Male,” “Female,” or “Other” to account for those whose identities didn’t fit within a rigid gender binary.

“Now, the gender field on your profile will contain four entries, ‘Male,’ ‘Female,’ ‘Decline to state,’ and ‘Custom,’” explains Bennett. “When ‘Custom’ is selected, a freeform text field and a pronoun field will appear. You can still limit who can see your gender, just like you can now.”

These latest updates reflect similar changes recently embraced at Facebook — which in February expanded its available list of gender identities available for users to select to more than 70 different options, depending on where users live — and online dating site OKCupid, which in November announced it would allow users to choose from a wide range of gender identities and sexual orientations.

The updates to Google+, however, seem to be the most user-driven implementation of the trend to expand gender and sexuality listings on social networking sites. By allowing users to write their own identities under the “Custom” gender listing, Google has given users total freedom to self-identify however feels accurate to them. Users can also decide what pronouns they’d like the service to refer to them using, selecting male (he/him/his), female (she/her/hers), or other, using the gender-neutral singular they/their/theirs.

Good move Google.

LGBT Link Round Up 12.15.14

LGBT Link Round Up (Trigger Warning) 12.7.14

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

Deshawnda Sanchez

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.

* * * *

 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.

* * * *

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.

* * * *

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.”

* * * *

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.

LGBT Link Round Up (Trigger Warning) 12.7.14

Kill the gays: have an ‘AIDS-free Christmas’

A pastor in Arizona is calling for the mass extermination of gay people.  In a Sunday sermon titled “AIDS-the judgement of God”, Pastor Steve Anderson said that if humanity wants an “AIDS-free Christmas” they should follow God’s biblical command to kill gay people.

Aside from the fact that this asshole advocates people being killed and thinks this would be a good thing (I guess all those icky gays don’t have families that love them), Mr. Anderson doesn’t appear to understand that heterosexual people also have AIDS:

Heterosexuals and injection drug users also continue to be affected by HIV.

Since the epidemic began, almost 89,683 persons with an AIDS diagnosis, infected through heterosexual sex, have died, included an estimated 3,516 in 20113.

New HIV infections among women are primarily attributed to heterosexual contact (84% in 2010) or injection drug use (16% in 2010). Women accounted for 20% of estimated new HIV infections in 2010 and 23% of those living with HIV infection in 20111, 2. The 9,500 new infections among women in 2010 reflect a significant 21% decrease from the 12,000 new infections that occurred among this group in 20082.

Injection drug users represented 8% of new HIV infections in 2010 and 15% of those living with HIV in 20111, 2.

Since the epidemic began, nearly 184,673 injection drug users with an AIDS diagnosis have died, including an estimated 3,723 in 2011

Kill the gays: have an ‘AIDS-free Christmas’

Kill the gays: have an 'AIDS-free Christmas'

A pastor in Arizona is calling for the mass extermination of gay people.  In a Sunday sermon titled “AIDS-the judgement of God”, Pastor Steve Anderson said that if humanity wants an “AIDS-free Christmas” they should follow God’s biblical command to kill gay people.

Aside from the fact that this asshole advocates people being killed and thinks this would be a good thing (I guess all those icky gays don’t have families that love them), Mr. Anderson doesn’t appear to understand that heterosexual people also have AIDS:

Heterosexuals and injection drug users also continue to be affected by HIV.

Since the epidemic began, almost 89,683 persons with an AIDS diagnosis, infected through heterosexual sex, have died, included an estimated 3,516 in 20113.

New HIV infections among women are primarily attributed to heterosexual contact (84% in 2010) or injection drug use (16% in 2010). Women accounted for 20% of estimated new HIV infections in 2010 and 23% of those living with HIV infection in 20111, 2. The 9,500 new infections among women in 2010 reflect a significant 21% decrease from the 12,000 new infections that occurred among this group in 20082.

Injection drug users represented 8% of new HIV infections in 2010 and 15% of those living with HIV in 20111, 2.

Since the epidemic began, nearly 184,673 injection drug users with an AIDS diagnosis have died, including an estimated 3,723 in 2011

Kill the gays: have an 'AIDS-free Christmas'

LGBT Link Round Up 11.29.14

Russian Government Sanctions LGBT Support Group for Suggesting Gay Youths Are Brave

The founder of “Children-404,” an online support network for LGBT teens in Russia similar to the “It Gets Better” campaign in the United States, now stands formally accused of illegal “gay propaganda.” Lena Klimova first reported the case against her group last week, after investigators visited her home and then summoned her to a federal police building. Klimova was asked to appear in Moscow today, November 18, but she couldn’t make the trip, as she lives more than 1,100 miles away, in Nizhny Tagil. Police refused Klimova’s request to move the case closer to her home.

Writing on LiveJournal today, Klimova published some excerpts—what she calls the “tastiest bits”—from the government’s charges against Children-404. The following language is from the state’s case against Klimova’s community:

The materials [on Children-404] can cause children to believe that being gay means being a person who is brave, strong, confident, tenacious, and someone with a sense of dignity and self-respect.

The comments [on Children-404] are openly negative toward mothers who condemn their teenage homosexual kids.

This community contains almost no information about the fact that this [sexual] orientation is untraditional according to the norms, customs, and practices of the Russian Federation.

Being gay does not prevent anyone from being brave, strong, confident, tenacious, or possessed of dignity and self-respect.  It’s a good thing to instill this in children…to show them that they are just as normal and human as everyone else. As for the comments, of course they’re going to condemn homophobic mothers (what about the fathers?). It’s a support group.  What kind of support group would allow bigoted, hateful comments to sit side by side with messages of love and support? And why does Children-404 need to tell people that being gay is untraditional? There are already so many messages being sent to LGBT youth in Russia that there is something wrong with them.  This is a support network you rabidly homophobic shitspigots! Of course they’re going to treat homosexuality as being completely normal.

* * * *

Why straight women and bisexual men may not exist

‘Let’s look at female sexuality,’ said Rahman taking a sip of the glass of Spanish white wine that had been recommended by our waiter. ‘There is a general assumption that female sexuality is generally more fluidic than that of males, and the current research really supports this.

‘An interesting starting point is that the number of women that identify exclusively as lesbian is about 1.5%, that’s about half that of the number of gay men.’

‘Another interesting fact is that of the self-identified straight women, anything up to 35% to 40% of women report they have had some sort of same-sex sexual experience or arousal.’

Rahman is quick to point out that research based on self-reporting or identification has its limitations.

‘Research that looks at physical responses provides us with a different level of insight because we’re looking at the involuntary physical response of a woman’s genitals. While female physiology is complex, by using a tool called a vaginal photoplethysmograph we’re able to record vaginal lubrication which is a strong indicator of sexual attraction and arousal.’

Apparently how this works is that participants in the study are shown footage of sexual activity. They get to see same-sex activity between men and same-sex activity between females. Footage of ‘straight’ sex isn’t used as it wouldn’t give a clear reading as it wouldn’t be clear whether the arousal was in response to the male or female.

Rahman explains that: ‘When these types of studies have been done with men, what we see is quite a binary response – self-identified straight men are only aroused by watching sexual activity between women; self-identified gay men are only aroused by watching sexual activity between men.

‘Women that identify as lesbians are only aroused by watching sexual activity between women.

‘However women that self-identify as straight or bisexual will generally show a more fluid arousal response in that they are aroused by footage of same-sex activity between men, same-sex activity between women; and footage of straight sexual activity.’

There is still continuing debate as to why this might be the case or what this may mean.

‘While we know that greater exposure of a female foetus to testosterone increases the chances of the child being a lesbian,’ says Rahman, ‘there is some suggestion that non-lesbian women don’t actually have a sexual orientation, that they’re not limited by physiological orientation.

‘That their self-identified sexual attraction category doesn’t necessarily match up with their physiological orientation doesn’t necessarily make their self-identification invalid, but it is an interesting insight into human sexuality – the primary purpose of which (according to evolutionary principles) is reproduction.’

In other words, women can think of themselves as straight and act straight but deep down inside they’re all capable of being attracted to other women.

So if we’re saying, from a scientific perspective, that all females are in some way bisexual, what does this mean in terms of bisexuality in males?

‘When we look at self-identification studies, men will either identify as straight, gay or bisexual (meaning that they are equally attracted to the same and opposite sex). However the prevailing scientific view is that bisexuality in males doesn’t physiologically exist.

‘In physical response studies (using a recording tool called a penile plethysmograph), we find that self-identified straight men and self-identified gay men respond as you would expect with a category-specific response. So straight men are more aroused by watching footage of same-sex activity between women; gay men are more aroused by watching footage of same-sex activity between men.

‘However 95% of of self-identified bisexual men are only aroused by the footage of same-sex activity between men, the remaining 5% are only aroused by the footage of same-sex activity between women.’

So you’re saying that there is no such things as a bisexual male?

‘The point is that male sexuality appears to be category specific. Bisexual males may exist but it’s likely that the numbers may be so low that it’s almost impossible to identify them through the available research.’

Bisexual males do exist.  I have the number for one of them in my phone right now.  This article seems like it was written to erase the experiences of bisexual men and heterosexual women.

* * * *

Male Sex Workers Reveal The Truth About Their Lives And Clients

The book, edited by Australian academics Victor Minichiello and John Scott, takes an in-depth peek at the lives of male sex workers from all around the world, offering a fascinating and complex portrait of the men’s daily experiences, the criticisms they face from both mainstream society and the gay community, and the way they’ve utilized the internet to build their businesses.

Minichiello and Scott studied more than 250 men in countries ranging from China to Australia to Germany to Brazil. They say their hope is to break down the stereotype that all male sex workers are “deviants” or “crazy,” and instead show that many of them are smart, rational people who have made a conscious decision to enter the sex industry.

Here are just some of the things Minichiello and Scott uncovered in their research:

Prostitution is a young person’s game.

Most male sex workers skew younger, usually between 20 to 30 years old. They tend to describe themselves as “fit” and “good-looking.” A large number of them call themselves “Jake,” and more often than not have brown hair and brown eyes.

“To succeed, these young men need to be skilled negotiators, small business operators, engaging conversationalists and fit, active and appealing,” Scott says.

Most clients are older, married men.

Clients tend to be predominantly middle-aged, married men who identify as “straight.”

“I discovered a side of my personality that I didn’t know existed,” one male client revealed in an interview. “And I discovered that I love to be sexually dominated by another man. For a long time, I was in relationships with women and had what I would call ‘traditional sex’, but somehow with time this stopped working for me.”

The majority of male sex workers are entrepreneurs.

“Street workers” represent very small portion of male sex workers. Some of the men work in brothels, though this requires paying brothel owners a commission. As a result, many of the men work independently.

* * * *

Marriage Equality In Mississippi! Can It Get Any More Inevitable Than That?

You’d have thought that you’d see a Muslim governor in Mississippi before you’d see marriage equality, but it turns out you’d be wrong. A federal court has ruled that the state’s ban on marriage is unconstitutional. Just to underline how inevitable marriage equality has become even in the South, a federal judge in Arkansas struck down that state’s ban just hours before.

The ruling is on hold for two weeks while the state prepares an appeal. There are now 35 states where marriage equality is the law or been found constitutional.

Judge Carlton Reeves determined that Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage amounted to “state-sanctioned discrimination” and concluded that “same-sex couples should be allowed to share in the benefits, and burdens, for better or for worse, of marriage.” Reeves also addressed the state’s decades-long history of homophobia, calling Mississippi out for “a constellation of state laws that treat gay and lesbian Mississippians as lesser, ‘other’ people.”

It’s worth noting that both Reeves and Kristine Baker, the judge in the Arkansas case, were appointed to the bench by Obama. (Just in case you ever wonder about the consequences of elections.) It’s also worth noting that the lawyer representing the couples challenging the law was Roberta Kaplan, who represented Edie Windsor before the Supreme Court.

(bolding mine) I’m glad this was mentioned bc I’m sick of people claiming that voting Democrat is the same as voting Republican.  Yes there are huge problems with Obama’s administration (the ramping up of drone attacks overseas and the continued invasion into the private lives of Americans being two big problems), but positive developments have occurred under President Obama that would likely never have happened under a Republican administration.  For one thing we’d have never gotten the Affordable Care Act under a Republican presidency, and that act brought healthcare to millions of Americans who previously didn’t have it.  And yes, as the above article points out, the two judges who struck down the bans on same-sex marriage were Obama appointees. That wouldn’t have happened under a Republican presidency.

* * * *

UK Politician: Gay ‘Deathstyle’ Brings 500–20,000 Sexual Partners And ‘Short, Miserable Lives’

Lord Christopher Monckton is the former UKIP deputy leader and was a Special Advisor to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But the 62-year old climate change denialist has been spreading his wings – and hate – across the pond, here to the U.S.

Claiming – though not naming – an “expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” had confirmed that gay people, whom he calls, among other names, “the QWERTYs” are “far more promiscuous than the heterosexual community,” Monckton writes in the equally vile World Net Daily (WND) conservative website,

Lord Christopher Monckton is the former UKIP deputy leader and was a Special Advisor to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But the 62-year old climate change denialist has been spreading his wings – and hate – across the pond, here to the U.S.

Claiming – though not naming – an “expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” had confirmed that gay people, whom he calls, among other names, “the QWERTYs” are “far more promiscuous than the heterosexual community,” Monckton writes in the equally vile World Net Daily (WND) conservative website,

Official survey after official survey had shown that homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime, and that some had as many as 20,000. One wonders how they found time for anything else.

Monckton also claims – falsely – that “QWERTYs – who represent about 0.5 percent of the population – have brilliantly promoted themselves by carefully shifting the debate away from what homosexuals actually do to each other (just ask any proctologist: all of them are heartily sick of trying to repair the gross damage caused by deviant sexual practices) and on to “celebrating” what is misleadingly presented as a ‘valid alternative lifestyle.’ Deathstyle, more like.”

“And why have homosexuals – most of whose partners last as little as a few hours – been so keen to promote the lifetime promises of so-called ‘gay’ so-called ‘marriage’? The reason, of course, is that they cannot produce children, so they want to adopt them. Is this fair to the children?,” Monckton asks. “The answer is no.”

I was initially going to say that I needed a citation for all the claims this fuckwad makes, but y’know what? Fuck that.  He’s spewing lies.  First off, he’s limiting his discussion of “homosexuals” to gay men, when lesbians are also homosexual.  Secondly, I know plenty of gay men that have relationships lasting months, years, and decades.  Thirdly, yes, adopting children to give them a good and loving home is fair to them. Fourthly, what is up with bigots and their obsession with gay sex?! I get it. You don’t like fellatio or anal sex. But guess what? No one is asking you to engage in either activity, so what’s your fucking problem. What I do…what any gay person does in the bedroom is none of your fucking concern. It doesn’t affect others and as long as it is consensual between two adults, no one should give a flying fuck about the sex lives of gay people.

But I really do want to see a citation for the claim that “Official survey after official survey had shown that homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime“. Not bc I think it’s true (believe me, I don’t). I’m just curious where he’s getting his “facts” from.

LGBT Link Round Up 11.29.14

Some right-wing hypocrisy to go with your morning coffee

Right-wing bigots are quite perturbed at the moment. You see, earlier this week, a Change.org petition was created, requesting that TLC cancel it’s popular tv show “19 Kids and Counting”.  The show’s matriarch, Michelle Duggar, recorded an anti-trans robocall to fight an LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance in Arkansas:

“Hello, this is Michelle Duggar,” Michelle says in this recording first published by Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper. “I’m calling to inform you of some shocking news that would affect the safety of Northwest Arkansas women and children. The Fayetteville City Council is voting on an ordinance this Tuesday night that would allow men — yes, I said men — to use women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas and other areas that are designated for females only.”

“I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls. I doubt that Fayetteville parents would stand for a law that would endanger their daughters or allow them to be traumatized by a man joining them in their private space. We should never place the preference of an adult over the safety and innocence of a child. Parents, who do you want undressing next to your daughter at the public swimming pool’s private changing area?”

That robocall is a transphobic piece of shit.  Trans women are not “after your children”.  They want to live their lives on their own terms as the gender they experience internally. It has nothing to do with being attracted to children and Duggar has no evidence that her fear-mongering has any basis in reality.

The Change.org petition apparently forced the American Family Association (that bastion of moral, family, and anti-LGBT values) to take action.  In yet another attack on LGBT people, the AFA sent out a petition reading (in part):

In the past week, homosexuals launched a very frightening and fast-growing petition asking TLC to cancel 19 Kids and Counting. Already, their hate-filled petition has gathered 130,000 signatures, thanks to the liberal media’s propaganda machine.

Our goal is 1,000,000 signatures by Christmas!

(as an aside, I love how right-wingers think that the media is liberal. I also find it funny that a hate-group is calling others hateful)

Not to be outdone, the religious LifeSite News created its own petition:

The Duggars need your help to save their show!

In the past few days, liberal extremists have launched a full-scale attack on the Duggars, demanding that The Learning Channel cancel the Duggars’ popular reality TV show.

Their reason? Michelle Duggar openly opposed an extreme ‘transgender’ bill in Fayetteville. The bill would have given biological males who say they are women the right to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other female-only facilities!

As of this writing, that petition has over 80,000 signatures, and is growing fast, with media like the Huffington Post leading the charge! We need to launch a counter-attack, letting TLC know that the American people stand by the Duggars and their defense of traditional family values.

Rather than being extreme, the Duggars represent the majority of people in state after state who have stood up for the traditional family.

The real extremists are those who are demanding that a TV network penalize America’s beloved family because they support the truth about family, which they have always expressed in a loving, compassionate fashion.

The Duggars represent a majority of what?  Imma need a citation for that one.

The Duggars have always expressed the truth about family in a loving, compassionate fashion?  Did these fuckers even read Michelle Duggars’ robocall? That wasn’t loving. That was hatefilled.  The Duggar’s are a family of bigots.  They espouse homophobia and transphobia, as well as harmful beliefs about the role of women dressed up as “sincerely held religious beliefs”.  TLC doubtless wouldn’t have a show about a family of people who were anti-Asian racists or anti-Semites, but they’re cool having a show centered around an anti-LGBT couple. I guess that’s not a problem for TLC.  Perhaps their “values” match those of the Duggar’s. But I digress.

LifeSite News also created it’s own #DefendtheDuggars Tweetfest! on Facebook.  If they’d have paid attention to the PR debacle surrounding rapist Bill Cosby’s “Meme me!”, they might not have done that. Some of the best LGBT activists took to Twitter, co-opting the #DefendtheDuggars hashtag.  Here are a few highlights:

Funny, isn’t it…the bigots DO always whine and complain when progressives talk of boycotting a company, bc that is vewwy, vewwy, wrong.  Except when they do it. Then it’s justified.

Some right-wing hypocrisy to go with your morning coffee

LGBT Link Round Up 11.11.14

Dedicated social activist and mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, refuses to speak up about the rights of gays and lesbians

Taras Karasiichuk, head of the organization UPO Gay Alliance Ukraine said in the statement that he was ‘very disappointed’ by the mayor’s comments.

‘What were we all speaking for during the Revolution of Dignity at the Maidan? It was all about providing Ukrainians, Kyiv citizens with equal rights – regardless their sexual orientation.

‘Our mayor as one of those politicians standing at the Maidan should have been the flagship of those changes in Ukraine. His statement – is a sheer contradiction: he is supportive of human rights, but will not support the same rights of LGBT people.

‘It is impossible – there are no special rights for heterosexuals, and separate rights for homosexuals, or bisexuals, or transgender people. Human rights are rights of humans! The rest is discrimination.’

Taras Karasiichuk appears to make the same mistake I frequently do: thinking LGBT people are human beings who deserve to live their lives free of oppression and discrimination. WhatEVER on Earth are we thinking?!

* * * *

Trans women stage first Pride parade in Bangladesh

More than 1,000 transgender women staged Bangladesh’s first ever pride parade yesterday to mark one year since the government recognized them as a third gender.

The colorful hijras, as transgender women are known in the conservative Muslim country, brought the busy roads of Dhaka to a standstill with their singing and dancing.

They unfurled a huge Bangladeshi flag and carried banners, one of which read, ‘The days of stigma, discrimination and fear are over.’

‘I never dreamt that I would see this day in my life,’ Sonali, 25, told AFP.

‘We are stigmatized everywhere. We are discriminated against. We are laughed at just because we do not feel like a man or woman. But today is different. We feel like we’re normal human beings.’

Bangladesh recognized hijras as a third gender in November last year, securing their rights and enabling them to identify their gender as ‘hijra’ on all government documents, including passports.

* * * *

Marcus Bachmann still defending conversion therapy

This weekend, according to Right Wing Watch, Mr. Bachmann was a guest on the radio program Understanding the Times.

He described himself, and others like him, as ‘people of ethics.’ Attacks on his clinic was because he was speaking ‘truth’ and ‘creating a safe space’ for LGBTI people.

‘Once the far-left understood that we were actually creating a safe place, a place where people who said “I have this issue with same-sex attraction, this desire. I’m a believer, I’m a person of faith and it’s conflicting with my values systems,”‘ he insisted.

‘Anyone who would walk alongside and then encourage that person’s values systems, and their beliefs, and bring that in alignment, that is like blasphemous to the other side,’  Bachmann continued. ‘How dare you even consider being involved in someone who has decided or is desiring that to influence in any way shape or form another side in the book on this one?’

The American Psychological Association has reported ‘efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve some risk of harm.’

This is one of many reasons why progressives feel that conservatives are not in touch with reality. They think their religious beliefs and opinions trump reality.

* * * *

‘Tony the Tiger’ Pride ad upsets Christians

The Kellogg’s cereal company is experiencing a backlash from Christian consumers who claim they’ll no longer buy the company’s products after it helped sponsor the Atlanta gay pride march in mid-October by using the beloved Frosted Flakes mascot, Tony the Tiger, in a pro-LGBT advertisement in the event’s pride guide.

“Wear your stripes with pride,” the Kellogg’s ad states, highlighting the word “pride” in large-font rainbow-colored letters, while Tony the Tiger stands to the right with his arms crossed and a familiar smile on his face.

The American Family Association, a traditional Christian values activist group, posted a picture of the Tony the Tiger advertisement to its Facebook page last Friday and since then, the post has received over 800 comments. Many of the comments were highly critical of the company for using a cartoon character to promote homosexuality, while a number of other commenters stated that Kellogg’s has no place, as a food manufacturer, to weigh in on sexual preference.

They aren’t promoting anything. They’re celebrating diversity. They’re saying “We aren’t going to shame you. We support LGBT Pride.”  Is there a bucket big enough to collect the tears of the bigots?

* * * *

Anti-Gay Duggar family asks couples to post kissing photos. Guess what happens next?

Recently, Jessa Duggar married her beau, Ben Seewald, and rumor sites claimed they “shared a private first kiss away from the altar immediately after their enormous wedding ceremony last weekend. But according to a shocked guest, the newlyweds may have done more than just smooch— and their steamy tryst wasn’t so private after all!”

So the Duggar parents took to Facebook to defend their good name.

“Recently, Ben & Jessa received some criticism for posting a kissing picture. We are so grateful they waited to share their first kiss until after marriage,” they wrote on their official Facebook page.

God designed marriage to be a loving, dynamic relationship between a husband and wife for a lifetime. God loves marriage and it is supposed to be full of love, joy, fun and romance. Marriage is where romance belongs!

We are so grateful they waited to share their first kiss until after marriage. We’ve been married 30 years and are still in love! We had fun trying to duplicate Ben and Jessa’s happily married kissing picture. We challenge all married couples to take a happily married picture and post it here.

I don’t think they got the response they expected.

LGBT Link Round Up 11.11.14

Woman of the Day: Chrishaun (CeCe) Reed Mai'luv McDonald

Growing up, I remember learning of the accomplishments of many people in US and world history and more often than not, those people were men. Women received much less coverage. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that the accomplishments of women have long been minimized, dismissed, or ignored.  This is another way that sexism has played out in society. Denying the accomplishments of women is an insult. It treats them as if they’re unimportant…as if they haven’t contributed significantly to events throughout human history. In this ongoing series, I’ll be highlighting notable women, historically important women, and those women who ought to be acknowledged.  My intent is to show that women have contributed to the course of human history and ought to be recognized, rather than ignored or overlooked. Born in 1989, today’s woman of the day is transgender prison-reform activist Chrishaun (CeCe) Reed Mai’luv McDonald.

Continue reading “Woman of the Day: Chrishaun (CeCe) Reed Mai'luv McDonald”

Woman of the Day: Chrishaun (CeCe) Reed Mai'luv McDonald