These Rescued Circus Lions are Recovering Nicely From a Lifetime of Abuse: PHOTOS

They were born in captivity and have no idea about the big cat sanctuary that’s in store for them in South Africa.
Animal Defenders InternationalCourtesy

By Simeon Tegel

LIMA, Peru — In a cramped, makeshift compound on the dusty outskirts of Lima, 24 rescued circus lions are enjoying more freedom than they have ever known.

But soon their lives are about to get even better. As GlobalPost reported in September, the animals will be headed in November to a big cat sanctuary in South Africa, along with another nine rescued in Colombia.

For animals born in captivity that have spent their entire lives in tiny cages — occasionally allowed out to create a spectacle for circus-goers, fed inadequate diets and often receiving no veterinary care — that will seem like heaven.

“The lions don’t know that their lives are going to change forever — from years of suffering in circuses, they will live in natural enclosures under the African sun. This is like a person applying for a visa for the trip of a lifetime,” said Jan Creamer, president of Animal Defenders International, the British nonprofit that organized the rescue and airlift.

But for now, the lions are getting ready for what is thought to be the largest-ever airlift of big cats. That means getting dental surgery to mend broken teeth and infected abscesses, extra portions of red meat to help them get back to a healthy weight and build muscle tone, and also slowly getting to know each other to allow them to form prides in South Africa.

The lions get to play with toys, including traffic cones. That’s more stimulation than most have had in their entire lives.

The cones last a day. The lions also love soccer balls, but those only last a matter of minutes, or even seconds, before the big cats burst them.

For some, one soccer ball is not enough.

Balls made out of rope are sturdier and last a few days.

Most of the lions have never had any veterinary care until now. This male needs dental surgery:

And this male, named Joseph, is almost blind from preventable cataracts:

The lions spend most of their time in cages as they await the airlift. But for the first time in their lives, all get an hour or two every day in this larger pen:

Some are also undergoing surgery for broken teeth and abscesses.

The lions are also being micro-chipped, to allow them to be tracked at their new home in South Africa.

This male has no idea of the new life of freedom that starts in November.

This article first appeared on GlobalPost. All photos courtesy Animal Defenders International.

The post These Rescued Circus Lions are Recovering Nicely From a Lifetime of Abuse: PHOTOS appeared first on Towleroad.

GlobalPost

These Rescued Circus Lions are Recovering Nicely From a Lifetime of Abuse: PHOTOS

VIDEO: Nightmare's Heather Langenkamp Is the Final Girl of Our Dreams

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced the world to Freddy Krueger, a burned bogeyman who created nightmares that carried over into waking life. However, this wholly original slice of fantasy terror also introduced moviegoers to Nancy Thompson, a resourceful “final girl” who inspired a generation of horror fans.

Played by Heather Langenkamp, Nancy was the furthest thing from a bimbo-fied scream queen cliché. She fought back with bravery, intelligence, and determination, while taking the fight to her attacker, rather than shrieking in terror as passive prey. Langenkamp would reprise Nancy twice — in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the meta New Nightmare.

Three decades after the original Nightmare, the character not only maintains a place of honor in the horror hall of fame, she’s celebrated as a gay icon of the genre.

Langenkamp recently sat down with The Advocate’s entertainment editor, Jase Peeples, to discuss why Nancy inspired a legion of LGBT horror fans, why more people should be dressing as Freddy’s nemesis on Halloween, and the horror of gender inequality. 

Jase Peeples

www.advocate.com/film/2015/10/30/video-nightmares-heather-langenkamp-final-girl-our-dreams

Gay Man Was Harassed At Work For Being A ‘Cocksucker,’ Court Says It Won’t Do A Thing About It

The Missouri appeals court acknowledged the discrimination happened; it just couldn’t do anything about it. Nor can most states.

The post Gay Man Was Harassed At Work For Being A ‘Cocksucker,’ Court Says It Won’t Do A Thing About It appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Zack Ford

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/10/30/3717515/missouri-discrimination-ruling/

Is ‘Masc 4 Masc’ Homophobic?

Online comedian, voice actor and chest hair model Sam Kalidi creates a new meme each week for Queerty readers. This week he considers member of the gay community who are obsessed with obvious signs of masculinity. Sam looks forward to all your hate mail. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and at your local glory hole.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/hsI4_Ovm7n8/is-masc-4-masc-homophobic-20151030

Ireland’s Marriage Bill Signed Into Law

Gay couples in Ireland will soon be able to marry, as the marriage bill has been signed in to law:

The Presidential Commission – which is made up of the Chief Justice, the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad – on Thursday signed the Marriage Bill 2015 in the absence of President Michael D Higgins, who is on an official visit to the US.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald (pictured) must now issue a commencement order which will allow same-sex couples to start getting married.

Fitzgerald has said that marriages will start by mid-November.

The Irish Times adds:

In May, the amendment was approved by more than 1.2 million people, or 62 per cent of voters, with a 60.5 per cent turnout. Roscommon-South Leitrim was the only constituency to reject the amendment.

The post Ireland’s Marriage Bill Signed Into Law appeared first on Towleroad.

Andy Towle

Ireland’s Marriage Bill Signed Into Law

Here's Why the World Congress of Families Conference Is So Scary

This week, four months after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, a U.S.-based international anti-LGBT hate group is hosting a four-day conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The conference, called The World Congress of Families IX, is a powerful reminder that, despite the significant advances in the fight for LGBT equality at home, the anti-LGBT extremists who once dominated the U.S. political scene have not disappeared. Instead, American anti-gay activists are working to spread their extremism abroad, fanning homophobic attitudes and legislation in the countries they target.

The conference is an annual gathering that serves as a meeting space for hundreds of international antigay activists to share tactics and intelligence in their fight against LGBT rights. The conference is organized by the World Congress of Families — a U.S.-based “pro-family” international alliance that works to impose a narrow, Christian right definition of “family” as an international norm. The organization’s “pro-family” work has earned it the designation of an antigay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The 2015 conference marks the first time WCF has held its event in the United States. Since WCF announced the Salt Lake City event over a year ago, LGBT rights organizations have been working to expose and condemn WCF’s role in spreading homophobia around the world.

Most notably, WCF has been linked to the extreme and international anti-LGBT movements taking place in Russia and Uganda in recent years. Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones has documented WCF’s activism in Russia as being largely responsible for the 2013 anti-gay “propaganda” law passed before the Sochi winter Olympics. Similarly, U.S. News & World Report linked WCF to the rise in anti-LGBT legislation and attitudes in Africa. Earlier this week, Theresa Okafor, WCF’s Nigerian coordinator who has worked to advance laws in Nigeria and Uganda to ban gay sex and relationships, was honored with a WCF lifetime achievement award.

As journalists and LGBT rights organizations have spotlighted WCF’s anti-LGBT activism abroad, WCF has attempted to deny its contribution to antigay laws in Russia, Uganda, Nigeria and elsewhere. To try to exculpate itself, WCF takes advantage of its own structure as an “international gathering” rather than a centralized organization. WCF itself has a limited budget and a small staff, allowing it the flexibility to distance itself from anyone not designated an “official” representative of the organization.

But WCF’s conference serves as a space for anti-LGBT extremists to gather and exchange strategies and policies designed to marginalize LGBT people. As a review of the latest documentary exposing WCF’s anti-LGBT lobbying notes, “View footage of any high-level meeting to draft draconian, homophobic legislation, anywhere in the world, and it seems you’ll find a WCF member or affiliate lurking in the corner of the frame.”

Given the recent progress of LGBT rights in the U.S. over the past few years, it might be tempting to brush off the WCF conference as irrelevant to the domestic fight for LGBT equality. But while groups like Family Research Council and National Organization for Marriage wield less power and influence over U.S. politics than they once did, the WCF conference gives these groups and other anti-LGBT activists an opportunity to export their homophobia abroad. WCF is only a four-day conference, but the connections made there will allow U.S.-based groups to grow their international reach and continue the global spread of anti-LGBT extremism for years to come.

RACHEL PERCELAY is an Equality Matters researcher at Media Matters. Previously, she worked at the Human Rights Campaign advocating for LGBT health care equality. She graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College with a degree in neuroscience. 

Rachel Percelay

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/10/30/heres-why-world-congress-families-conference-so-scary

Open Question: What to call an NGO that helps the social minorities?
so im planning to open up a small group that hopefully will become an NGO and im having problems naming it. its all about minorities, lgbt mostly but it also targets every non adult who suffers from being on the sideline. black, disabled, gay, poor, every single thing that leads society to outcast someone
i need a name please help 🙂

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151030015730AAbzAiB

God Says….
submitted by fakeshits
[link] [3 comments]

God Says….
by inlgbt

Open Question: What does it feel like to be gay?
Hi I’m a 15 year old straight guy and I was wondering, what does it feel like exactly to be homosexual? When did you realize you were attracted to the same gender and how did you feel when you discovered you were really homosexual? I’m really curious about this! No I’m NOT asking this question out of hate. I have NOTHING against LGBT people whatsoever!! I’ve just always wondered what it felt like to be a gay person. Thanks for your answers!!!

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20151029224656AAinFDK

A Trans Parent: How One Woman Is Inspiring a Nation
The first time I ever heard of Jessica Lynn, I was sitting down in a small recording studio at the base of UCSB’s Storke Tower. I had been invited as a guest to be interviewed for Your True Gender Radio about my life as a transgender correctional officer. The program was part of Your True Gender, a non-profit organization co-founded by Jessica Lynn. At the time, she seemed like a mythical figure. An amazing woman who’d overcome the war trenches of life to emerge a shining beacon for the Trans community. I looked upon her like a superstar, an unreachable force of nature that I would never meet.

Imagine my surprise when she reached out to me. It came to her attention that I was looking for Transgender stories to tell; I wanted to sharpen my journalistic skills. Barely a month after my radio interview, there she was, sitting in my living room. Over dinner, we began to feel each other out. She knew my work as a writer and loved it. I was given a crash course on her own unbelievably spectacular life story. Before parting, I agreed to working with her as a writer, and an occasional speaker.

We corresponded over the next few months. Learning that she was quickly becoming a premier speaker at colleges and universities across the United States. Every Trans person has a story. Tales of suffering, of utter hopelessness, and of coming out. But none are quite like the life led by Jessica. As a Trans woman myself, there is much of her story that I connect with. Just as many transgender stories parallel the next. Yet her saga has a flavor to it, an unidentifiable anomaly that draws in audience after audience. And that’s before you even begin to learn about her children.

Having grown up in 1960s and 70s America, there was not much information for a transgender child to find, let alone any Trans role models. The particular details of her early days, while undeniably fascinating, pale in comparison to the sideshow she was exposed to in the great state of Texas. Where she was forced to prove her worth as a father and a human being, in order to keep her son.

The first thing that many people notice when Jessica walks into their classroom is how unabashedly feminine she is. Perhaps the expectation lay elsewhere when you hear that a guest speaker is Trans. But at 50 years old, she immediately shatters many of the preconceived notions of what “transgender” looks like. Typically dressed in a light flowing blouse and sensibly short skirt, she stands confidently in front of the class, ready to blow their minds.

Her candid delivery is unfiltered. Each group is instantly made at ease when they realize that she is not there to lecture them. Instead, they are treated to some of the darkest moments of her life; even a few of its highlights. The presentation is accompanied by a PowerPoint slideshow, giving the audience a visual guide to color in the details. There is much to draw from emotionally, in Jessica’s story, yet it is the court battle over her youngest son that ultimately brings the Trans narrative into perspective.

Jessica is a father to three children. For most of their lives, she was Dad, a man. She lived 45 years as the person others wanted her to be, who they thought she was meant to be. During this dark period, she met a girl and together had three beautiful boys. While Jessica was supremely gifted as a father, she severely lacked in her capacity to be a husband. This inefficiency broke the couple apart. Jessica’s wife couldn’t deal with a man who wanted to become a woman, a man that would not, could not show her the love and affection she expected of a husband.

As Jessica’s transition progressed, the relationship between the divorced pair faced a new hurdle; the custody of the children. Jessica had already come out to the two eldest boys. But there was concern over the right moment to tell their youngest that his dad, was now a woman. What happened next floored Jessica; the ex-wife was seeking to have her parental rights abolished. She wanted to take away Jessica’s youngest son. And a Texas judge agreed.

For the sin of seeking an authentic life, of being a transgender woman, Jessica Lynn lost her child. She was not only barred from any involvement with her son’s life but from revealing her true self to him on the threat of confinement in prison. Her name was erased from his birth certificate. The one good thing about her former life, her children, and one of them had been stolen from her.

This is what Jessica’s story is all about. Why it is so important, so compelling to the thousands across the country privileged enough to hear it. They don’t have to be transgender to understand the loss of a child. To know that for any parent, no matter the physical makeup or alignment, it is a literal nightmare.

By the end of her presentation, Jessica is visibly drained. Though she hides it well, the effect of recalling over and over again the loss of her son is heartbreaking. She always hangs around to answer any pressing questions burning in the overstimulated minds of the crowd. Even exiting the speaking hall, she continues to field questions of her newest fans. Some come to her with stories of their own, some move in for a warm embrace with tears in their eyes. All, are affected, changed.

Jessica has changed my life too. She has inspired me in countless ways. To be a better person, a vocal advocate, and of course… to write. She is not done. Not done telling her story. Not done helping others. And she is not done, fighting for her son.

— 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.

feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677065/s/4b177487/sc/38/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0Cmandi0Ecamille0Ehauwert0Ca0Etrans0Eparent0Ehow0Eone0Ewoman0Ib0I84273180Bhtml0Dutm0Ihp0Iref0Fgay0Evoices0Gir0FGay0KVoices/story01.htm