Queer Notes: August 2023

August 9, 2023

Takes up: New ultraconservative members to the board of trustees of New College of Florida, once known for its Queer-friendly progressive education; transphobia increasing in Pakistan; and Pride marches across the Philippines during Pride Month 2023.

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Queer Notes: October 5, 2022

October 5, 2022

Rainbow Migration demanded the UK Prime Minister “end immigration detention for all LGBTQ+ people,” “scrap the Rwanda plan” and “reverse changes to the standard of proof for LGBTQ+ people’s asylum claims”; Twelve Republican-led states banned Transgender girls and women from competing in sports; and a long awaited center serving LGBTQ+ people opened on Chicago’s South Side.

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Youth in Action: September-October 2022

September 24, 2022

A high school protest in Denton, Texas; a demonstration in Lindblom Academy in Chicago; a protest in Oklahoma against dress codes; a students’ occupation at Marquette University, and the creation of a woman-friendly, LGBTQ+ inclusive skate crew in Chicago.

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Queer Notes: September-October 2022

September 13, 2022

Queer notes on human rights violations on LGBTQ+ people in Ghana; anti-LGBTQ+ actions against UpRising Bakery and Café in Lake in the Hills, Illinois; and South Korea’s Seoul Queer Culture Festival.

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Women, youth fight back as horror of abortion bans unfolds

September 6, 2022

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned women’s right to abortion, the profound ramifications of that unprecedented decision are becoming known. Women are fighting back, from the Women’s March, to Black women, to Teens for Reproductive Rights, women will reclaim the right to control our own bodies.

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Queer Notes: July-August 2022

July 5, 2022

The work of Guardians of Equality Movement (GEM), the LGBTQ+ rights organization in Syria; Greece joined 14 other nations in banning conversion therapy; a student at Kalama High School in the state of Washington organized a rally supporting a Transgender student who was beaten in the school; and an art exhibit “Our Blood Can Save” opened in Brooklyn’s Major R. Owens Health and Wellness Community Center.

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LGBTQ+ are under fire in Ukraine

May 20, 2022

LGBTQ+ Ukrainians are reacting in a variety of ways to the Russian invasion. Some are fleeing, others have enlisted or been drafted to fight; and others are staying to help their country in other ways.

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Queer Notes: March-April 2022

March 19, 2022

LGBTQ+ students are protesting injustice in Kenya, Florida and Texas; the suspected suicide of Gay mayor Kevin Ward highlights suicide risks for gay men; Black Trans woman Ju’ Zema Goldring’s unjust arrest; and the banning of conversion therapy for people under 18 in New Zealand.

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Queer Notes: January-February 2022

February 7, 2022

Queer Notes on Nobody’s Darling, a new Queer bar in Chicago; the death of Rebecca Juro, radio host and advocate for Trans rights; LGBTQ+ reaction to the election of Gabriel Boric in Chile; and LGBTQ+ discrimination in South Korea.

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Review: #ChurchToo

May 8, 2021

Author Emily Joy Allison created the hashtag #ChurchToo to share her story of an adult youth group leader’s attempt to groom her into being raped when she was a teenager. By the next morning, thousands had used #ChurchToo to tell their stories of abuse within the Church.

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Queer Notes, September-October 2020

August 29, 2020

Camila Falquez’s photo manifesto of Trans and Queer Black and Brown people; the arrest in Poland of Transgender rights activist Małgorzata Szutowicz, and the rally to support her; Mexico City’s outlawing of conversion therapy; and a remembrance in Allentown, Pa., for 20 Black, Transgender and Indigenous people murdered for being who they were.

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Queer Notes, November-December 2019

November 17, 2019

Stabbing of a Palestinian Transgender teenager; vandalization of the Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago; a Shoreline, Wash. Christian school’s new policy stating the Bible is inerrant, and rainbow crosswalks in Ames, Iowa.

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The ‘Power of Pink’

September 27, 2018

Report of Planned Parenthood’s “Power of Pink” volunteer training conference, which drew over 2,000 young women to Detroit July 27-29, 2018.

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Chef fights abuse at Azusa Pacific

February 6, 2018

Mahesh Pradhan, an immigrant, was working as a chef and supervisor at Azusa Pacific University, a Christian college in California, when other supervisors and employees who perceived him as Gay subjected him to chronic abuse, which he fought with support from an underground campus Queer club.

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Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements

September 2, 2017

A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .

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The Ghost Ship fire

January 26, 2017

A view of the fire at the Ghost Ship that takes into account the capitalist nature of rents, evictions, land use, and how youth, by the way the live their lives, are fighting back.

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Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt

The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea of what is to replace it, and with full knowledge that a large majority of Americans oppose the repeal of its most important provisions—gave a sign of how far the new single-party government intends to roll the clock back, with dizzying speed.

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East Europe elections

December 2, 2016

Article about the recent elections in Bulgaria and Moldova and their possible connection with Vladimir Putin’s fascist influence in East Europe.

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Youth in Action: November-December 2016

November 30, 2016

International look at youth activism including the Fees Must Fall movement in South Africa; students at Boston College rallying against an anti-gay atmosphere; the CDC leaving out Transgender students in a survey on suicide; and Native American youth protesting polluted water in the Klamath Strait Drain in Oregon.

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Queer Notes: November-December 2016

November 26, 2016

A worldwide view of Queer news including vigils for murdered Transgender woman T.T. Saffore; problems some in Japan have with LGBTQ youth; an investigation in Pakistan against a Transgender woman; and a kiss-in organized in response to a complaint against two men holding hands in public in England.

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Youth In Action: September-October 2016

September 17, 2016

A look at youth activism including factory workers protest the murder of child laborer Sagar Barman; women’s skateboard team Las Brujas finds creative ways to fight male domination in the sport of skateboarding; Helena High School students supporting Kaitlyn Juvik in her right to choose not to wear a bra; and activists who protested two years ago in Hong Kong for freer elections are sentenced and vow to continue the struggle.

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Turkey’s Erdoğan – the pious dictator

September 7, 2016

A view of what the failed coup in Turkey has wrought, including mass arrests of teachers, trade unionists, doctors, medical personnel, and others as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, makes a grab for total power.

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Anger & tears in NYC

July 7, 2016

In light of the Orlando massacre, LGBTQ people and supporters in New York City spontaneously demonstrate against Queerphobia, on and then one day after the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which started the modern Queer liberation movement.

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Queer Notes, January-February 2016

January 25, 2016

Repression of Tunisia’s LGBTQ community; murders at Mexico’s Reina Gay festival; Ukraine bans employment discrimination against GLBT people; fundraising failure for U.S. opponents of same-sex marriage.

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Editorial: Putin’s retrogressionism

December 10, 2015

Putin found a formula: to participate in genocide while claiming to be fighting “terrorism.” This says everything about the nature of his retrogressive rule, and about the hypocrisy of the U.S. and Europe

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Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015)

September 3, 2015

On Aug. 12, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015) was killed in the California State Prison-Sacramento. Pinell was a comrade of George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr, and other founders of the modern prison movement.

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What is Transgender solidarity?

June 29, 2015

Is Caitlyn Jenner who is for taking away access to birth control, locking up our children and friends in prisons, denying full equality and autonomy to other LGBTQ people, supports war, deportation raids and all kinds of other evil stuff somebody who we should support?

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Black Lives Matter

The long-simmering outrage of Black masses has broken out into a movement against this racist society, particularly its pattern of racist killings by the police. It has not only reverberated internationally, but also made itself felt in the battle of ideas and the sphere of theory.

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Ukraine and Bosnia: historic uprisings

March 16, 2014

In Ukraine, an unexpected eruption of mass struggle led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s corrupt, oligarchic, and ultimately murderous President Viktor Yanukovych. In Bosnia, at the same time, massive, nationwide discontent with the corrupt system left in place when the 1995 Dayton Accords partitioned the country has led to the equally unexpected creation of new forms of democratic organization.

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Queer Notes, September-October 2013

October 7, 2013

Chicago: pediatric gender-identity clinic; Bisexual men more anxious and depressed; United for Marriage Coalition apologize to Transgender and undocumented immigrant supporters of marriage equality

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Readers’ Views, January-February 2013, Part 2

March 10, 2013

ARCHIVES AS LIVING

I have been following the readings for the 2012-2013 Marxist-Humanist discussions with great enthusiasm. I was especially energized by the “Women as force and reason of revolution” selections. Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1970 piece “The Women’s Liberation Movement as Reason and as Revolutionary Force” was fresh and relevant to today. This is no surprise [=>]

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Queer Notes, November-December 2012

December 13, 2012

by Elise

On National Coming Out Day this year, youth in particular showed the way. Texas Tech University’s Gay-Straight Alliance members told coming out stories. People wrote their sexual orientation or gender identity on a door provided by the University of Florida’s Pride Student Union. Virginia’s George Mason University held an ice cream social, a [=>]

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Honduras three years after the coup

December 12, 2012

La Voz de los de Abajo (Voices from Below) sponsored a delegation to Honduras in September, three years after the 2009 coup which deposed the elected President Manuel Zelaya.

Under his successor President Lobo, violence escalated. Seventy Aguán campesinos (peasants) were murdered in three years.

Honduras’ homicide rate is the highest in the world. Lawyers, politicians, human [=>]

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Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 1

October 15, 2012

CAPITALIST CRISIS AND REVOLT

I appreciated Franklin Dmitryev’s Lead article in the July-August N&L, on “Spain, Greece, Europe: Capitalist crisis and revolt,” for showing how the so-called “radical Left” is not really so radical. They think they can solve things through managing the economy and redistributing wealth, and channel energy into politics.

The boldfaced paragraph in the [=>]

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Queer Notes, September-October 2012

October 10, 2012

by Suzanne Rose

Yaounde, Cameroon—Human rights leaders from Africa united to denounce “Gay Hate Day,” which took place on Aug. 21 in Cameroon, and the ongoing arrests of people suspected of being Gay. The Archbishop of Yaounde contributed to this homophobic backlash calling homosexuality “shameful” and “an affront to the family, enemy of women and [=>]

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Boycott Chick-fil-A

October 8, 2012

Photo by Bob McGuire for News & Letters

Chicago—Picketers gathered in front of the only Chick-fil-A in Chicago to protest the company CEO using his chicken joint as a bullhorn to attack marriage and other civil rights for Gays. We were outnumbered by the customers who had streamed in for Chick-fil-A “Customer Appreciation Day,” [=>]

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