Takes up: Uganda’s President Museveni who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which includes the death penalty; That supporters of drag story time at Middlesex County Library in Parkhill, Ontario, Canada, protected the storytellers and attendees from 40 anti-gay protesters; and Namibia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other countries undermines the dignity and equality of the appellants.
Takes up: Minnesota Personal Care Assistants (PCAs) who agitated for better wages and overtime pay won; Hereford’s Mercia Learning in the UK applied to convert a day nursery into a Growth, Empowerment and Motivation school, to educate 30 neurodivergent students; and on April 26 people with disabilities protested train travel into Paris, France, as most of the 12 million people with disabilities in France struggle because of taxis and train ramps that cannot accommodate wheelchairs, or no ramps at all.
Across the U.S., many Republican lawmakers are proposing and passing transphobic legislation. This year alone, 498 such laws have been proposed, and 46 passed, compared to 149 proposed and 17 becoming law in 2022. Utah began its year by passing a law that denies hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries to people under 18, even when [=>]
People with disabilities protest UK anti-protest law; Senegal woman with disabilities works to ensure access for disabled children; Saskatchewan people with disabilities demand better access and benefits.
Asian-American disability rights activist Alice Wong’s memoir “Year of the Tiger”; In Poland, caregivers of children with disabilities called for the right to work part-time jobs while keeping government stipends; and disability rights activists critique California’s CARE Courts Act, where courts can order involuntary treatment plans for people with psychotic disorders.
Trans people in Puerto Rico; a counter-protest led by Rainbow Coalition, protector of Trans children in Canada; and a protest at Chicago’s Benet Academy against the firing of soccer coach Amanda Kammes.
Queer Notes takes up a Queer rights rally in Madrid, Spain, to call for stronger laws to protect LGBTQ+ people; LGBTQ+ people and their supporters in New York City protested the homophobic assault against Abimbola Adelaja and his friend; and Parents in Tennessee and the Human Rights Campaign are suing the state to overturn its anti-Trans law that allows schools to be sued if they allow a Trans student in a cisgender bathroom.
Elise Barclay remembers Ed Negron, a Chicago activist for Latinx, LGBTQ+ and especially Bisexual rights.
A roundup of Pride events around the world: Pride Afrique; Budapest, Hungary, Pride March; Equality Pride in Warsaw, Poland; Sulong Vaklash in Manila, the Philippines; Pride Parade in Bogotá, Colombia; Resiste Bebita in Lima, Peru; Boston Pride/BP; Chicago Drag March for Change, Pride Without Prejudice and West Side Pride.
More Russian youth are accepting LGBTQ+ people because for years many have been coming out publicly; the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya is demanding USAID and the UK redirect their aid–which has been funding conversion therapy in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda–to LGBTQ+-run organizations; and two businesses in Tennessee won an injunction against an anti-Trans law.
Readers’ Views on: A Colombian View: What Is Socialism?; Trevor Wins!; Detroit School Fight; Suez Accident; What Prisoners Want; Voices From Behind Bars
The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland decries Ireland’s denial of asylum for a Zimbabwean Lesbian and for several other LGBTQ+ refugees; and U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced a bill to block funding from state and local sports organizations that allow Transgender females to participate in girls’ or women’s sports.
Readers’ Views on: Trumpist Coup and Fascist Threat; Black Revolt and Social Movements; Right’s War on the Mind; Love Is Love; The Unfinished Battle; Women’s Liberation; What Is Capitalism? What Is Socialism?; Ray Bazmore
Rohingya Muslims have faced extreme hardship at the hands of Burma’s military with the cooperation of the civilian government under once opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, spurred on by Buddhist religious leaders encouraging genocide.
Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.
“Queer Notes” author Elise explains how the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting minority communities especially hard and that the LGBTQ community is no exception.
The photographs and captions in Slobodan Randjelovic’s “Lives in Transition” exhibit show a Queer community that hopes, fears, desires, loves and struggles.
Queer Notes on a fictional tale of Transgender youth Zhang Wang’an in China; a sign distribution rally in the U.S. to support two neighborhood LGBT families; Pride Parade in St. Petersburg; and Pete Olson, Texas Republican, sponsoring a bill to invalidate executive orders that included Trans people as a protected class.
News on LGBTQ struggles: the first judge to rule for equal protection for Gay women and men, dies; Lebanon Judge rules that courts must protect homosexual people; a fundraiser for Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Partners; Tennessee legislators introduce several anti-Queer bills; the Center for Victims of Torture provides therapy for victims of torture, including LGBTQ people.
A report of the 18th International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), observed in November, which commemorated Transgender and gender-nonconforming people who were murdered over the last 12 months just for being brave enough to be themselves.
A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
Readers debate Gay marriage, Queer liberation and Caitlyn Jenner.
Jessie Hernandez; China LGBT Awareness Campaign; Tennessee Trans Justice Project; Michael Mason
In cities across the world, the names of Transgender people who were murdered or committed suicide were read out at rallies on or around Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
Thuma and Kaba focused on reviving a strong movement against the imprisonment of women who have defended themselves against violence—who have injured or killed men who raped and/or abused them. They presented as a model the defense of women of color in the 1970s, like the campaigns for Joanne Little, Inez Garcia and Yvonne Wanrow, all prosecuted for killing men who had attacked them or their children. (All three spoke for themselves in News & Letters.)…
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
South Carolina parents Mark and Pam Crawford, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Advocates for Choice filed federal and state lawsuits against South Carolina’s Department of Social Services and the healthcare workers responsible for the genital normalizing surgery performed on the Crawfords’ adopted child, known [=>]
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
Chicago—Joining actions across the U.S. over Mother’s Day weekend, several hundred people here rallied on May 10 in support of the over 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram on April 15. At the rally, which was overwhelmingly African-American and Nigerian, we called [=>]
