Anchorage Non-Discrimination Ordinance Public Hearing Concludes
After two days of powerful and emotional testimony on several proposed non-discrimination ordinances here in Anchorage, Alaska, the public hearing process has concluded. It now moves towards a potential vote on September 29.
HRC.org
Rainbow Doritos Accused Of Being “Gay Gateway Snack” And Akin To ISIS
Two of our most favorite things are joining forces to become one: Doritos and rainbows. But not everyone’s pleased about it.
Related: Burger King Serves “Proud Whopper” In Colorful Wrapper, Tells Customers It’s “All The Same Inside”
Popular chipmaker Frito-Lay announced this week that its teaming up with the It Gets Better Project to launch a limited-edition version of its Cool Ranch-flavored Doritos. The chips come in Pride colors: green, blue, purple, red, and orange and are branded Doritos Rainbows.
“Doritos Rainbows chips are a first-of-its-kind product supporting the LGBT community,” Ram Krishnan, Frito-Lay’s chief marketing officer, said in a press release. “Doritos the brand has stood ‘for the bold,’ and we believe there is nothing bolder than being yourself.”
Related: Daily News Columnist “Furious” Over Gay Pride Oreo Cookie
The chips are only available online when you donate $10 or more to the It Gets Better project. After making a donation, Doritos will send you the chips, free of charge, within two weeks.
Predictably, not everyone is happy with the Pride-inspired snack food. Some folks have taken to Twitter to voice their disappointment with Frito-Lay, calling the chips “sick,” “disappointing,” “ISIS,” a threat to Christianity, while urging people not to make the contribution or buy any Frito-Lay product, anywhere. Here’s what these folks have been saying:
Boycott Doritos and all the stand for. Who needs rainbow Doritos? We Christians have rights. We are being persecuted.
— Miriah (@miriahcex) September 18, 2015
Sick! Doritos Aligns with Anti-Christian Bully Dan Savage – Breitbart t.co/SoaJg8jHT1 via @BreitbartNews — Justin Mitchell (@justinbmitchell) September 17, 2015
#Boycott #FritoLay #OFFENDED #Protest #Doritos Don’t Buy! #TCOT #CCOT #PJNET #USA ?? #LGBT pic.twitter.com/WrOH3kDHIM — LindaPJ (@PJStrikeForce) September 18, 2015
@Doritos so disappointed that you would choose a group associated with Savage. Nasty, disgusting man filled with hate. #boycottdoritos — HighHorse (@ConservativeLeo) September 17, 2015
Well I won’t be buying @Doritos anymore. Anything who partners with Dan Savage is something I avoid. — Joshua Banks (@joshuabanks94) September 18, 2015
Hey @FritoLay how insufferably stupid are you? Gay chips? I send my kids to school with your products. Am I going to have to cease now? — Ric the Magnificent (@NASCARNAC) September 18, 2015
Think about it @Fritolay -Pandering to the 3.8% is not a good business strategy @CampOfSaints1 @molita128 #tcot #ccot pic.twitter.com/z26aIubpe3 — Savannah Maddox (@SavannahL817) September 18, 2015
@Doritos By promoting sex orientation Rainbow Doritos food products, as of yet with the kosher seal. Your brands are banned from purchase — Richard Rafail (@czar1213) September 18, 2015
I always enjoyed @Doritos. I’ve purchased my last bag. There’s a difference between marketing and advocacy #sadploy t.co/rW5i8uQcvz
— Bryan Ferrell (@Bryan_Ferrell) September 18, 2015
Time to boycott @Doritos for their “rainbow” chips. Oh puhleez Doritos! Are you going to make black ones next in support of ISIS? — Give me Liberty (@jwd828) September 17, 2015
Graham Gremore
Nepal Lawmakers Enshrine LGBT Protections in New Constitution
The Constituent Assembly of Nepal has overwhelmingly approved a groundbreaking new constitution that explicitly mentions the human rights of LGBT people. It is the first constitution in Asia to do so.
Under the new constitution:
HRC notes there is “no direct mention of same-sex marriage in the new constitution, but all issues related to marriage in general will be handled in the civil code, which will be revised in the future.”
“It feels that we, the GSM, are proud citizen of Nepal, we also have dignity and we are also the right holder,” said Sunil Babu Pant, the country’s first openly gay lawmaker. “But we are not in an illusion to the fact that this is just the beginning of the long road ahead towards full equality, dignity, rights and mainstreaming of GSM communities in Nepal.”
Pant continued, “We will be working together with the rest of the Nepalese to build our nation, the ‘new, inclusive and prosperous Nepal’”
The post Nepal Lawmakers Enshrine LGBT Protections in New Constitution appeared first on Towleroad.
Kyler Geoffroy
Nepal Lawmakers Enshrine LGBT Protections in New Constitution
Helping Queer Youth Affected by the School-to-Prison Pipeline
In the current age of marriage equality and open military service, it has become all too easy to forget that the Stonewall riots were in fact a violent uprising against years of police brutality and harassment, led by gender-nonconforming activists of color. Despite attempts to rewrite the history, the fact remains that in the early years of the LGBT movement, police violence was arguably our most central concern, and LGBT people of color were often the ones on the front lines of the resistance.
Though much has changed, much has stayed the same.
Those hit hardest by police brutality are still LGBT people of color. According to data from 2014, transgender people of color were 6.2 times more likely to experience physical violence from police than their white, cisgender counterparts. LGBT people of color remain on the front lines of resistance as well. Two of the three founders of #BlackLivesMatter, for example, are queer women of color. Indeed, Black Lives Matter has transformed the narrative around police brutality to make central the ways in which intersecting identities and gender play a role in the dehumanization and devaluation of black lives.
Despite the long-standing leadership of queer and trans people of color and our shared history and current struggles, most national LGBT and racial justice organizations often have difficulty moving beyond single-issue silos. The prioritization of single-issue organizations over those that adopt broader frameworks has made it difficult to build strong alliances between our movements. Indeed, we need alliances now more than ever.
As with policing, the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline provides an opportunity to collaborate, and to do so in a way that builds alliances across race, sexuality, gender, and generation. This week, Advancement Project, the Equality Federation, and Gay-Straight Alliance Network came together to release Power in Partnerships: Building Connections at the Intersections to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline, a report we hope will help organizations take steps to build collaborative relationships that can increase our power.
In just over a decade, the school-to-prison pipeline has transformed from an unknown education issue into a national movement. Communities across the country have organized to advocate for commonsense discipline solutions that keep students in the classroom, and have drawn attention to stark racial disparities that make black students three times more likely to be suspended than their white counterparts. More recently, the movement has highlighted increased use of exclusionary discipline on LGBT and gender-nonconforming students, particularly LGBT students of color. Today, LGBT youth make up only 6 percent of the general population but represent 15 percent of people currently in juvenile detention.
We are in the midst of a school discipline crisis that is driving LGBT youth, youth of color, and especially LGBT youth of color out of schools and into the juvenile justice system. This crisis presents another important opportunity for us to break down the barriers between our movements and build on collaborative partnerships. Driven by our shared interest in the decriminalization of youth, we can work together to push back against the punitive policies that deny our youth the opportunity to succeed.
It is our hope that this report inspires our movements to take a step back and think more generally about who and what we are targeting in our work. When we do, it is likely that we will find that we often encounter the same discriminatory individuals, underresourced institutions, biased courts and policy-making bodies, broken systems, unfair social structures, and undereducated hearts and minds. The more we think of our work broadly as pushing back against these same targets and the more we realize our similarities, the easier it will be to close the gap between our movements.
Following the Stonewall riots, a variety of LGBT organizations emerged that emphasized the importance of racial justice and the power of a movement built on the shared interests of LGBT people and people of color to push back against police brutality. In 1970, the Gay Liberation Front and the Black Panther movement pledged support to each other, recognizing the value of their shared experiences with police brutality and harassment. As Huey P. Newton himself explained, “[the] gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.”
The LGBT movement and the movement for racial justice haven’t always been divided. In order to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and create brighter futures for LGBT youth and youth of color, we need to look beyond the traditional boundaries of our organizations. Our young people need as many allies as possible.
THENA ROBINSON-MOCK is the project director for the Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track Campaign at Advancement Project. IAN PALMQUIST is the director of leadership programs for Equality Federation.
Ian Palmquist & Thena Robinson-Mock
www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/9/18/helping-queer-youth-affected-school-prison-pipeline
Don't Dismiss Me for Being Genderqueer
‘Genderqueer is a trend.’ ‘Genderqueer people are just playing dress up.’
These myths are commonplace, perpetuated by misinformation in mainstream media, whispers in support groups, rants in online forums and jerks in the comments. They are the norm of what genderqueer represents in people’s minds. I’ve read one too many articles — especially by transgender people — claiming that those who are genderqueer do not experience the same troubles as trans men and trans women.
So I want to set the record straight.
Some genderqueer people are playing dress up. Some genderqueer people are young, young enough to be swayed by their peers, by what they think is cool. And right now, genderqueer is kind of cool. Some genderqueer people claim this label purely as a means to rebel against gender roles, gender stereotypes, gender expectations. Some genderqueer people do not experience discrimination, or rejection or violence.
But not all.
In fact, I’d argue that most genderqueer people do not fall into this more vocal, more visible group. The majority of genderqueer people are not doing it because it’s cool. They are not teenagers. They are not playing dress up. They are not a trend. They are simply genderqueer because they feel that the two options offered – male and female – are not enough for them to truly live.
Photo Credit: Chloe Aftel, Genderqueer seriesThey are simply trying to figure out how to be themselves in a world that does not acknowledge anything outside of these two rigid categories.
They experience social dysphoria from hearing a heavily gendered name, or a pronoun that essentially announces their genitals to everyone within earshot. They battle pasts fraught with fighting against what was expected of them, without words to proclaim otherwise.
They experience physical dysphoria about their body parts. They undergo expensive medical treatments to align the image in the mirror with the one in their minds. They jump through legal hoops to correct what they feel is a marker that doesn’t represent them. Even if the result still doesn’t reflect who they are, it’s better than doing nothing.
Doctors tell them they aren’t trans enough to transition. Family tells them they aren’t trans enough to call them by a different pronoun. Trans brothers and sisters tell them they aren’t trans enough to warrant support, services, acknowledgement, a community of solidarity within the transgender umbrella.
Genderqueer people are transgender. Genderqueer people experience discrimination, rejection, violence. Genderqueer people are not playing dress up.
Yet, even the slice of young folk who are crossing gender lines solely in the way they dress, in their haircuts and make up and accessories, are an integral part of the genderqueer community. For the first time in modern history, people feel a sense of freedom; we’ve created a space safe enough where they can explore gender. By being visible in their exploration and vocal in their pushing, they expand that freedom to others. This type of scrutiny over gender axioms is the sort of shakedown society needs.
All of us are helping tear down notions of what gender looks like, what gender should be, what gender really is. Some genderqueer people may just be having a good time, being the cool kids for once; or, they may not yet fully understand their gender identity — trans or not — and the freedom to explore gender outwardly is a critical step towards that discovery.
Our communities have developed in such a way that genderqueer exists simultaneously as an expression and as an identity, except only one of these representations evokes a dictionary lookup in people’s minds. Once genderqueer is pigeon-holed as simply outward appearance, genderqueer the identity is being dismissed for everyone.
Both concepts are important, yet present intersecting challenges based on the singular needs of each: free expression, support for transition, the validity of self-identity. The difficulty in trying to nail down a specific vocabulary lies in that most of these terms have different meanings depending on who you ask, partly because they are so new, partly because we only have a handful of words to describe infinitely individualized notions of gender. It may take a few years before these words coalesce into a shared definition, before genderqueer refers to a gender identity — a deep-rooted sense of self, on par with man or woman — rather than dismissed as a teenage trend.
In the meantime, I’m careful not to refute someone’s experience based on what they look like on the outside. I’m careful to grant them this freedom to explore and figure things out about themselves, a freedom most us regretfully never received as youth, and many others never will.
My hope in educating trans folk — and their families, their friends, their allies, their doctors, their teachers and dog walkers and hair stylists — about genderqueer identities is to expand the framework with which everyone thinks about Gender.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
HRC Houston Federal Club Event Highlights Efforts to Protect HERO
Last night, several dozen HRC Houston Federal Club members gathered to hear about efforts to protect Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).
HRC.org
Hospital Encourages Men To Sell Their Sperm, NOT Their Kidneys, For An iPhone 6s
If you thought those absurd lines that form around an Apple store in the days preceding a big product launch were bad, wait until you learn the lengths some Chinese men are going to secure a soon-to-be released iPhone 6s.
China Daily reports that in at least two cases, men have attempted to sell their kidneys to raise funds for the new tech.
They went so far as to contact a potential black market buyer and arranged medical tests in a nearby hospital in Nanjing.
Luckily for them, the buyer didn’t show, and the men have held on to their internal organs. Maybe they can hold our for the 7?
Apple fanboy fervor is well-documented in China. In 2012, the release of an earlier iPhone model was stopped on safety grounds after a near-riot broke out in Beijing.
As is to be expected, Chinese medical institutions aren’t so fond of this disturbing kidney story, and one hospital has responded with one of the strangest campaigns imaginable.
Renji Hospital in China is encouraging men to donate sperm and use the money to pay for a new iPhone 6s using the tagline, “No need to sell your kidneys, you can easily have a 6s.”
Still sounds like a sticky situation if you ask us.
Dan Tracer
Australian Bobsled Stud Simon Dunn Talks Singlehood, Sex Positions, and Losing His Virginity: VIDEO
Everyone’s favorite beefcake bobsledder Simon Dunn is back with another video, this time featuring the out athlete engaging in some pillow talk and answering fan mail about his private life.
Questions Dunn is asked include: Are you single? Top, bottom, or versatile? What are you into in the bedroom? When did you lose your virginity? Ideal man? What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
Check out his answers in the revealing bedroom video below:
This isn’t the first time Dunn has talked about his personal life. In a July interview with Attitude magazine, Dunn shared what’s keeping him back from tying the knot:
“One day I would like to meet the right guy, settle down and have kids. But I will only do this when I can get married in front of friends and family in my home country. If I can represent that country in sport I should be able to marry the person I love. I can’t believe that now the US has passed same-sex marriage, my country still hasn’t caught up with the rest of the world, which makes me angry. The law needs to be changed as soon as possible, otherwise we’ll look as bad as other countries who treat gay people like second class citizens.”
The post Australian Bobsled Stud Simon Dunn Talks Singlehood, Sex Positions, and Losing His Virginity: VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.
Kyler Geoffroy
Australian Bobsled Stud Simon Dunn Talks Singlehood, Sex Positions, and Losing His Virginity: VIDEO
Customized Care in Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment
If you follow the scientific method, you collect the evidence that exists — you gather and inspect data — and test your hypothesis. Compare this to wild assertions, based on nothing but emotion.
Nowhere is the analysis of information more urgent, and nowhere is the use of this material more revealing, than in the treatment of alcohol and drug addiction.
I prefer, therefore, to proceed in reverse order by stating my conclusion first.
Not every addiction requires the same treatment, and not every patient with the same addiction will recover by receiving the same treatment. Customized care means that the director of a credible drug treatment facility — and by “credible,” I refer not only to the longevity of an expert’s career, but the success rates and specialized approach an expert applies on behalf of each patient — will recognize the following:
There are different addictions that are more or less prevalent in specific communities, for reasons of economics, race, gender and sexual orientation, which demand our immediate attention.
Take, for instance, addiction among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), members of this community are, in comparison to heterosexuals, more likely to use alcohol and drugs, have higher rates of substance abuse, are less likely to abstain from alcohol and drug use, and are more likely to continue heavy drinking longer.
Of equal concern is the prevalence of addiction to methamphetamine, or crystal meth, which, based on this piece of reportage (“The Beast in the Bathhouse; Crystal Meth Use by Gay Men Threatens to Reignite an Epidemic”) from the New York Times from January 12, 2004 — a prescient warning from the past — is much worse today.
The past is, indeed, prologue when you review statistics about meth addiction from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Their study, conducted during the same year in which the piece in the Times ran, finds that:
Among a survey of urban, young men who have sex with men (MSM), included with the SAMHSA study, 20 percent of the participants reported having used methamphetamine during the past 6 months.
As a scientist, these statistics — and many others from both the CDC and the Center for American Progress (“Why the Gay and Transgender Population Experiences Higher Rates of Substance Use”) — confirm that the type and frequency of addiction varies within particular communities.
In turn, my natural inclination is to understand how to treat this addiction (or series of addictions) for the good of LGBT patients nationwide.
According to Manny Rodriguez, founder and executive director of La Fuente Hollywood Treatment Center:
“The numbers [about addiction among LGBT individuals] speak for themselves. If you dissect the statistics, as I have, you soon realize that there are socioeconomic factors that disproportionately affect the LGBT community. Those variables present specific challenges — and demand specialized treatment — that only certain facilities can address.”
Manny further explains that, unlike the treatment protocol for other chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, in-depth knowledge of LGBT issues makes a significant difference in patient outcomes.
He says:
“Customized care within the world of alcohol and drug addiction involves much more than a good bedside manner. If a treatment center is not conversant in the individual needs of LGBT patients, then generic approaches to addiction — treatment planning that ignores the personal dynamic between a heterosexual methamphetamine user and a gay or lesbian addict of the same drug — will have a much higher incidence of failure.”
“You need to know the interplay between the drug and the patient, or the forces between the addiction and the addict. Methamphetamine addiction in almost every case I see is accompanied with sexual experiences that are compulsive and high risk for men having sex with men. Safety in a treatment setting to process and discuss a patient’s past without fear of judgment or having to edit is a paramount in helping them develop the tools necessary for long-term recovery.”
Those words resonate with me because, to return to my formal training as a scientist, information reveals as much as it conceals. To uncover the latter, we need to ask questions — a lot of them — to get the answers patients and treatment centers want.
For the LGBT community, and for those dedicated to helping this constituency, now is the time to seize a new beginning of improved health and wellness.
Need help with substance abuse or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Thirty years after snub, why Greg Louganis still wants to be on a box of Wheaties
Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis wants to make clear that he is not angry over having never been featured on a box of Wheaties.
And he doesn’t need for it to happen now to make his life happy or complete.
But yes, it would be nice.
‘To simply be here, living my life as my true self is rewarding enough,’ Louganis writes in a new WhoSay column. ‘However, I feel like I owe this box to my friends, family, and fans that have been cheering me on for decades. Sure, the Wheaties cover would have been cool in 1984… but after all we’ve been through, it would be even more iconic now.’
It was in 1984 that Louganis won the first two of his four career Olympic gold medals in diving – the second two would come four years later. He also won a silver medal as a 16 year old at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
While fellow Olympians like gymnast Mary Lou Retton were quickly embraced by Wheaties and other companies, Louganis was largely ignored.
‘They didn’t come out and say it, but the message was loud and clear. They knew I was rumored to be gay and homosexuality wasn’t going to fly on a wholesome Wheaties box,’ Louganis writes. ‘Ouch.’
He adds: ‘People are kind of surprised when I say that I have no hard feelings about being denied a cover. After all, it wasn’t anything personal – it was a sign of the times of Corporate America.’
People had just assumed that an Olympic icon like Louganis, widely considered the greatest diver in history, had been on the Wheaties box at some point. It wasn’t until he pointed out that he had not in his 1995 autobiography that people became aware of the slight.
‘People started showing up at signings holding Wheaties boxes with my picture glued on them,’ he writes. ‘They wanted redemption.’
Earlier this summer, one of those fans decided to do something about it.
Julie Sondgerath of Chicago, Illinois, launched a petition on Change.org urging Wheaties parent company General Mills to finally give Louganis his Wheaties box. It’s been signed by more than 37,000 people so far.
‘Many people don’t realize, or simply forget, how far we’ve come,’ Louganis writes. ‘I’m hoping that if and when my Wheaties cover happens, I can raise awareness about all of the positive work General Mills has been doing for the gay community. I want people to think, “Now, that’s a company I can get behind.”‘
The post Thirty years after snub, why Greg Louganis still wants to be on a box of Wheaties appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
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