I don’t remember how many of you remember the TG person who was serving in Iraq, but she’s back home now!
Whew. Welcome home!!
World AIDS Day
It’s World AIDS Day.
Despite decreases in the rate of infection in certain countries, the overall number of people living with HIV has continued to increase in all regions of the world except the Caribbean. There were an additional five million new infections in 2005. The number of people living with HIV globally has reached its highest level with an estimated 40.3 million people, up from an estimated 37.5 million in 2003. More than three million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2005; of these, more than 500000 were children.
Walk This Way
On 11/11/05, social justice activist and transgender woman Sylvia Rivera was honored by the City of New York with the re-naming of the intersection of Hudson St and Christopher Street as “Sylvia Rivera Way.”
^ Syliva Rivera’s corner of the world
Trans Partners and William Safire
I don’t know if any of you saw Safire’s column about whether or not the word “gay” covers gay men and lesbians anymore (it doesn’t, not really), but this was my favorite part:
Diane Anderson-Minshall, executive editor of Curve, a lesbian magazine in San Francisco, agrees that the one-word adjective was expanded to set homosexual women apart: “When, in the queer world, you say ‘the gay community,’ the majority of the time that conjures up San Francisco’s largely male Castro District, or West Hollywood or ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,’ so interjecting the word lesbian into the mix is a necessary reminder that we — gay women — are not simply a subset of that larger male world but rather our own distinct community of individuals.” The editor freely uses “queer,” formerly a slur, to include not only lesbians but “bisexual women and lesbian-identified transgender women.” This leads to the initialese L.G.B.T., standing for “Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender,” as well as its gay-first G.L.B.T. (emphasis mine)
Diane Anderson-Minshall is not just the editor of Curve (as if that’s not enough) but a trans partner, which just goes to show, once again, that we make damned good ambassadors for y’all.
Update on Murdered CD Doctor
I’d previously reported on the murder of a crossdressing doctor, back on October 11th, and wanted to post an update now that the ruling came through: Dr. Binenfield’s killer got 20 years.
Eating It, Too
Thank You, Rosa
She was always one of my favorite models for activism – not someone out to change the world, not someone out for the power & the glory, just a woman who’d had enough.
Thank you, Rosa.
Congratulations, Shannon Minter!
I just heard the news that Shannon Minter won a Ford Foundation award – specifically a ‘Leaders for a Changing World’ award.
A huge congratulations – and a thank you – to Mr. Minter and his ongoing work.
(You can read more about Minter and the award on the boards.)
Amnesty International Report on Treatment of LGBT Americans by Law Enforcement
Amnesty International’s report, Stonewalled: Police abuse and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the U.S., is not good news at all.
The reports on the NYPD alone make me sad, and a little more scared. You shouldn’t have to feel like you’re relying on luck to be treated even moderately well by the police, but from what this report says, that is the case.
So what do we do about this? I’d be happy to conduct transgender-sensitivity training for the NYPD, if anyone knows anyone who could make that happen.
Anti-Gay Governator
The Governator has promised to veto a Gay Marriage bill in CA.