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Austin Takes Major Steps Forward On Transgender Rights

Austin Takes Major Steps Forward On Transgender Rights

Stabler

Austin on Thursday became the first city in Texas — and the 43rd in the nation — to add transgender-inclusive health benefits for employees.

The City Council unanimously approved a resolution adding trans-inclusive benefits — including primary care, hormone therapy, mental health care and surgical care — beginning in 2015. 

The council also voted to require business owners to install signage indicating that single-stall restrooms are gender-neutral, and approved a resolution on pregnancy guidelines that specifically includes transmen.

Trans activist and HRC board member Meghan Stabler (above), who lives in Austin: 

BREAKING: Today, the Austin City Council unanimously approved a resolution directing the City Manager to incorporate transgender-inclusive benefits as part of the City employee benefits package in the Fiscal Year 2015-2016 proposed budget. Specifically the City Council approved three trans* friendly items:

Ordinance — single occupancy gender neutral restroom signage now required.

Resolutions:
— Directs city manager to incorporate Trans-inclusive health benefits for city employees as part of Fiscal year 2015-16 proposed budget
— Directs city manager to examine workforce practices in other cities regarding personnel policies for **pregnancy-capable** employees & develop recommendations for implementation to council May 1st 2015. – note that the resolution specifically includes transmen.

Express thanks go out to CCM Mike Martinez and Chris Riley for steering this through for the vote. There were several local advocates involved in this for months, well done.

The trans-inclusive benefits were opposed by the Travis County Taxpayers Association, and gender-neutral restrooms faced opposition from the anti-LGBT group Texas Values and its President Jonathan Saenz, according to a recent report from KTBC-TV: 

“Legally, politically and financially, this is not a smart move by the city of Austin,” Saenz said. “There are major privacy issues and safety issues when we deal with these type of transgender bathroom issues and we’ve seen them come up in Houston and San Antonio, where women are concerned about sharing or having to use a restroom where maybe a man’s gonna come in before or after them, you have small children and little girls.”

Jimmy Flannigan, an openly gay City Council candidate, has also come under attack from his opponent for supporting the gender-neutral restroom proposal. 

But Thursday’s actions by the City Council only further solidify Austin’s reputation as the queerest city in Texas. 

Next up? Rainbow crosswalks. 

Crosswalks


John Wright

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/austin-takes-major-step-forward-on-transgender-rights.html

NEWS

Bobby Jindal 'Prayer Guide' Blames Gays For Hurricane Katrina – VIDEO

Bobby Jindal 'Prayer Guide' Blames Gays For Hurricane Katrina – VIDEO

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Louisiana Governor and anti-gay “Christian” nutjob Bobby Jindal is claiming in material for a prayer rally to kick off his possible presidential run that Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters are the result of god’s anger at gay people, reports Right Wing Watch.

Last month, Jindal spoke at an anti-equality, “pro-family” event in Dallas. He has also given anti-gay Duck Dynasty star Phil Roberston an award for Entrepreneurial Excellence.

Jindal is set to kick off the potential presidential campaign in January with a stadium prayer rally organized by anti-gay groups and individuals including listed hate group the American Family Association.

It would appear that Jindal’s campaign is being closely modeled on Rick Perry’s disastrous 2012 run for president. Organizers are actually reusing material from Perry’s 2011 prayer rally in Texas that blame natural disasters on gay people, marriage equality, legal abortion and Internet pornography. 6a00d8341c730253ef01a511ba7967970c-800wi

The prayer guide for the rally also appears to be exactly the same as the guide distributed to participants in Perry’s 2011 event.  As Right Wing Watch points out, the materials have not “even been updated to include the increased number of states that are bringing God’s judgment on America by allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.”

The prayer guide includes the following nuggets of “Christian” wisdom:

“We have watched sin escalate to a proportion the nation has never seen before. We live in the first generation in which the wholesale murder of infants through abortion is not only accepted but protected by law. Homosexuality has been embraced as an alternative lifestyle. Same-sex marriage is legal in six states and Washington, D.C. Pornography is available on demand through the internet.

“Biblical signs of apostasy are before our very eyes. While the United States still claims to be a nation ‘under God’ it is obvious that we have greatly strayed from our foundations in Christianity.

“This year we have seen a dramatic increase in tornadoes that have taken the lives of many and crippled entire cities, such as Tuscaloosa, AL & Joplin, MO. And let us not forget that we are only six years from the tragic events of hurricane Katrina, which rendered the entire Gulf Coast powerless.”

Watch Jindal speak at this year’s anti-gayathon GOP-backed Values Voter Summit, AFTER THE JUMP…


Jim Redmond

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/bobby-jindal-prayer-guide-blames-gays-for-hurricane-katrina-video.html

NEWS

Get Bent With Queer Zine “Crooked”

Get Bent With Queer Zine “Crooked”

jordan_crooked

Photo by Nick Bostick

The latest edition of the queer zine Crooked makes for a perfect raunchy Christmas gift. There are tales of a naughty public masturbator, bathhouse misadventures, sex in porn shops, an interview with amateur porn icon Dom Fournier, photos by Amsterdam-based photographer Paul Bujis and artwork by New York-based artist and author Slava Mogutin. What’s not to love?

Scanning the pages of Crooked is like being in a time warp and on poppers. The “fagazine,” edited and published by Montreal writer Jordan Coulombe, is an homage to the glory days of pre-Internet ’80s and ’90s punk zines. It’s an exhilarating read.

“When I was a closeted kid in the early ’90s I used to collect gay magazines and other gay printed paraphernalia in a box hidden in my bedroom,” Coulombe recalls. “These magazines were my first connection to other fags and to some extent I learned what being a fag was all about from them.”

Even in the Internet era — where it seems everything is shared online, anonymous or not — there’s something refreshing about just how frank the writers are about various perverse, off-the-wall sexual shenanigans. “I’d like people to see Crooked as a platform for confronting taboos and overcoming shame through confessional storytelling and flagrant exhibitionism,” says Coulombe. “At first glance Crooked might just appear to be this sleazy rag, but I think by creating a space for uninhibited, intimate writing, it also manages to normalize human experiences that we’ve been conditioned not to talk about openly. I’ve certainly found myself revealing some compromising anecdotes I would have never imagined myself publishing until the zine started pulling them out of me. But beyond that, it definitely is still a sleazy rag that’s trying to encourage people to have a sense of humour about their human impulses and shortcomings.”

BananaCrooked may put off some on the more earnest end of the politically-correct spectrum, but Coulombe says he’s not about to start wearing beige anytime soon. “There’s certainly this element of contemporary queer discourse that’s all about being cautious and policing what is unsayable.  However, Crooked is more concerned with trouble-making than paralyzing people with self-doubt about whether they’re being politically correct enough. I’ve published a certain amount of political articles in Crooked but the fourth issue is definitely leaning more towards the sleazy and scandalous, which you can tell just by the sheer increase in the amount of dicks scattered across the pages. I do a lot of work creating design layouts for each piece in Crooked and I’m always a little panicked that the more militant queers are going to cannibalize me for getting a little too provocative, but so far the project’s been pretty well received, even by the most humourless.”

The publication of Crooked raises the obvious question: a printed zine instead of going online? “I can definitely see the benefits of producing an online magazine but I’ve remained really opposed to the idea. My reasons are certainly more complicated than a romantic nostalgia for print, but there’s probably an element of that to it. I don’t think I’d be able to get people to open up in quite the same way for an online magazine, which would be easily Googled by family members and potential employers. I also like the way reading such a graphic printed magazine in public completely exposes you in a way that digital media doesn’t. For example, I can’t help feeling really conspicuous reading Crooked on a bus and I think it’s healthy to confront that awkwardness and learn to feel comfortable being a giant queer in public.”

Crooked #4 is out now.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/TUy_cc1h-vQ/get-bent-with-queer-zine-crooked-20141212

NEWS

22 Marvelous Gifts For Anyone Who Likes to Look (or Smell) Marvelous

22 Marvelous Gifts For Anyone Who Likes to Look (or Smell) Marvelous

From butchy belts and men’s boots to dead sea salts and a gel that promises to help obtain six-pack abs, there’s something perfect for the fashionista, beauty maven, or narcissist on your shopping list.

read more

Diane Anderson-Minshall

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/holiday-gifts-everyone/2014/12/12/22-marvelous-gifts-anyone-who-likes-look-or-sme

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