From the November-December 2016 issue of News & Letters
by Elise
Participants at Black Transgender Lives Matter vigils held for murdered Black Transgender woman T.T. Saffore want violence and murder against Transgender and gender-nonconforming people to be reported, and reported accurately. Initial police reports often misgender the victims. Activists call for the same support for Black Transgender and gender-nonconforming people that cisgender Black men would receive from their communities of color.
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Japanese LGBTQ students are bullied without consequence in a culture where group mentality is so important that individualism is squashed. Students report that teachers call Queer students weird and do not prevent open jokes about them. Teachers say LGBTQ students disrupt harmony in school and are the main cause of AIDS. Japan’s anti-bullying policies exclude sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.
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In September the National Commission for Interfaith Harmony & Human Rights Pakistan demanded an investigation into the violent attack against a Transgender woman in Peshawar. Protests in Pakistan have raised awareness of the rape, murder, harassment and assault targeting Transgender and Intersex women, and even the medical care they are denied.
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What did partners Thomas Rees and Joshua Bardwell do after a security guard at Sainsbury, a grocery store in East London, England, demanded they leave because a customer had complained about them holding hands in public? They organized a kiss-in at the store the following Saturday, in which many same-sex couples participated!