Embarrasing Lesbian incidents

As if we did need more negative press now comes a Star headline on a fight in a girl's home and as usual the Star News has to feed us with a same gender loving grabber to create labrish and excitement. 

If that wasn't enough another fight of sorts occurred in a plaza in full view of many late last week which has been causing a stir as well. Alleged photos were taken at the time of the the very public quarrel and uploaded to a popular social networking site but have since been removed for reasons unknown.

That incident has also drawn the anger of many who say or ask why gays and lesbians have to bring their business in public?

As if to say we don't have a right albeit somewhat embarrassing as the exchange maybe but the use of public spaces for any activity not illegal is limited to only heterosexuals, if two heteros were fighting or arguing in public it would have drawn a large crowd and loads of laughter but a lesbian couple must somehow step aside. 

Only a couple months ago in Spanish Town there was another such incident involving two school girls from an institution in St. Catherine where the quarrelling couple were parted by other classmates (males included) this phenomenon of fighting in public in particular once seen more so in the MSM and drag groupings of the lower socio populations and used to be strongly condemned by other members of the LGBT community mostly from middle and the upper socio economic levels who often complain about the embarrassment and disruption it caused at parties and on the community itself so much so that the entertainment arenas became very class divided and questions would be asked in response to adverts about upcoming events like "are those people going to be there?"

I can almost assure you that a string of sensational same gender loving tinged stories are going to start flowing again from the tabloid as they go on an on again off again quest.

Here is the story from the Star:

During fight at girls' home ... LESBIANS THROW FILTH AT EACH OTHER?

Sheldon Wright, STAR Writer

A group of lesbian girls at a place of safety are alleged to have thrown faeces at each other last week when they became involved in a huge fight.

According to reports reaching THE WEEKEND STAR, the fight at the home, which is said to house teenage girls, allegedly developed when one ward became involved in a fight with another because of her involvement with a female.

After the authorities tried to stop the fight, it is alleged that the girls went to a nearby cesspool took the faeces and began throwing it at each other and the authorities.

When the police were alerted and arrived on the scene, a source told THE WEEKEND STAR the girls went as far as stripping to prevent the lawmen's operation.

Unheard of behaviour

Source said that even with the presence of the person in charge of the home, it took quite some time and effort to get things under control.

When THE WEEKEND STAR contacted a representative of the Child Development Agency we were told that; "There was a fight last week, however, it was brought under control."

The representative said that it appears that one girl who was recently transferred to the facility met upon another girl with whom she had a fight at the previous facility.

When asked about the alleged lesbian relationships taking place on the compound, the representative said, "There are no such reports of such behaviour as we have never heard of any of that there."

ENDS

The story is conflicting though as the so representative of the facility was said to have said they are not aware of any same gender loving activity taking place there but the article starts off by describing the alleged fighters as lesbians, someone is lying it seems. But the public reaction as I've seen so far earlier today is enough to justify that the Star has a winner in their camp in terms of stoking the homophobic/lesbophobic levels as many when hearing fecal matter was involved seem to merge gay male anal sex with contact with the substance as well then looping all into the realm of "nastiness"

Peace and tolerance

H

Protect Transgender people in Latin America

Between January and June 2010 alone, 93 transgender killings were reported by the media across the world. Eight out of ten of these murders (74 cases) took place in the region.

On 7 June the General Assembly of the Organization of American States adopted a resolution on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity that reaffirms the commitments of member states made in three previous resolutions on the issue.

Now that OAS have reaffirmed their commitments to human rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity it is imperative that member states keep their promises and ensure that the rights of sexual minorities are respected, protected and promoted and that gender based hate crimes are properly investigated and perpetrators taken to justice.

How transphobia is impeding the HIV response
There are an estimated 1.4 million people living with HIV in Latin America. For the last 30 years the transgender community in Latin America has been almost invisible. HIV monitoring focused solely on men who have sex with men, so the exact number of transgender people living with HIV was not known.However, recent studies have shown that where most Latin American countries have a HIV prevalence rate of 0.5 – 1%, among transgender people prevalence rates are estimated to be 35%.
Current laws and law enforcement practices do not support people living with HIV and
most-at-risk populations to access essential HIV services. In addition in Latin America, a culture of machismo and religious conservatism has nurtured a growing pattern of violence and hate crimes against the transgender community.

Without laws and law enforcement practices which protect human rights, people living with HIV and the communities most at risk of HIV are unable to access HIV services and participate in prevention, treatment, care and support programmes without fear of arrest or prosecution.
There have been some moves to legally protect most-at-risk populations from
discrimination (new and proposed legislation passed in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador for instance). However, the reality is that prejudice and stigma is still deeply rooted in public services, particularly among health care workers, and unequal access to justice remain.

INCREASED VULNERABILITY TO HIV FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE

In addition to the violence and intimidation experienced by the transgender community, what puts them at particular risk to HIV?
Minimal to non-existent access to adequate healthcare. When transgenders access health services, the care provided is often stigmatising. They are treated as men and discriminated against for looking like women. The situation is worse for transgender people living with HIV;
few are able to access ARV treatment, even in countries where the state has committed to universal access to treatment.

Sex work is one of the few options available to transgender people in order to earn
money. Minimal educational background and strong discrimination on the part of employers result in few employment opportunities for transgender people. Studies suggest that about 90% of transgender people engage in sex work. Condom use is inconsistent – clients will often request unprotected anal sex and this will increase the risk of HIV.
Auto-prescription of hormones and self-administered body implants are very common
among transgender people. This very often involves the use of needles. Hormones and
silicone may be bought on the street. Unsafe body implant substances (like cooking and baby oil) are used and self-administered with minimal hygiene conditions and their use is not monitored by healthcare professionals. This is very risky and lead to severe health repercussions and a shorter life

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

TAKE ACTION HERE

TvT-TMM-Tables2008-2010-en

Why does Clovis make gays look effeminate? (Observer Letter) .....

Fellow blogger and activist in his own right Brian Paul Welsh responds to the recent caricaturizations by resident cartoonist for the Observer Clovis as evidenced in the toons below. Personally I understand somewhat why he does it the way he does as it is a reflection of the national psyche on effeminacy or sissy attitudes from men that determines they are in effect gay.

Our response in this case is not to kill the messenger but all of us including the limp wristed advocates (who should have counteracted the perceptions stoked by the print media especially all these years) but to counteract the perceptions with positive images and responses like some of those press releases that were so unneeded from the conveyor belt. Not knocking Brian's response however and he is not associated with the J.

Have a read of Brian's letter and see what you make of it:

Dear Editor,

Certain people in your editorial department may find Clovis's caricatures to be humorous, salient, poignant or whatever positive adjective is usually applied to good journalism, and especially good satire, but for quite a while now it would appear that he has fallen off the wagon and hit his head.

For instance, his insistence on typifying gay men as bleach-faced, cross-dressing, hideously unattractive, deformed and lobotomised may illicit belly laughter from those in the newsroom, but civil society is beginning to grow sick of this insensitivity.

These mis-characterisations are not novel to Clovis as he has gleefully reduced many notable Jamaicans to vulgar market vendors, witch doctors, and bald-headed crypt-keepers, so much so that one is usually left with the impression that he has left the realm of satire and gone into what seems like vitriolic personal attacks. This, of course, betrays the most basic of tenets governing journalism and one would hope that the editor would take the executive decision as a responsible journalist and refuse to publish such drivel or push Clovis to be more creative. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that such a conversation has ever taken place.

Especially in the case of his most recent typification of gay men as weak, effete headcases, he has done the community a great disservice. He must be made to elevate his creativity and become more aware of his personal responsibility to illuminate the minds of the wider community or give up journalism and go and illustrate comic books or write graffiti.

Brian-Paul N Welsh

brianpaul.welsh@gmail.com
ENDS

Also see:

Cartoons and the use of gay typed characters part 2

Apology Accepted JCF but some questions on several fronts still linger ...

here are two responses to the whole thing:

Jamaican: "it exposes the hypocrisy within the community when the SSP spoke he was actually talking about the gays that look like that but persons are up in arms because they want the Observer to portray the gay community as a bunch of nice middle class men as if that is any more representative than what the Observer has drawn so me love it cause it stokes debate about class identify within the community furthermore it is those gays that look like that which are at the front page of the fight and the nice middle class gays are in hiding, so why should the nice middle class gays get editorialised and not the cross dressing lout mouthed uncoted fags"

Guyanese: "I want to write a response to say thank you to Clovis for celebrating respect for femininity in a christian culture which beheaded two women"

Interesting.

Peace and tolerance

H

Important documentary on Intersexuality .......

The matter of intersexuality was looked at in an in depth documentary available in parts on youtube for viewing, the producers delved into issues by interviewing members of the leading intersexuality organization in Australia OII - Organisation Internationale des Intersexués (OII) for Intersexions including David Iris Cameron, Gina Wilson, Hida Viloria, Jim Costich and Yann Bradbury. Non-OII people also included are non-intersex academic Alice Dreger and Bo Laurent aka Cheryl Chase, both formerly of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA).

more reading:

Intersexion (Is He Or Isn't She?) Documentary follows the personal stories of a variety of people who identify as neither male nor female including Mani Mitchells uniquely New Zealand story

Disorders of sex development (DSD), sometimes referred to as disorders of sex differentiation, are medical terms referring to "congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical." Lee et al. proposed a system of nomenclature based on "disorders of sex development" for clinical use, noting that "terms such as intersex, pseudohermaphroditism, hermaphroditism, sex reversal, and gender based diagnostic labels are particularly controversial," may be perceived as pejorative, and are confusing to practitioners and parents alike. In "We Used to Call Them Hermaphrodites," author Vilain makes clear that "DSD" is not a synonym for intersexuality; it replaces medical terms based on "hermaphrodite"

OII

The Organisation Intersex International (OII) is a global advocacy group for people with intersex traits. It is the largest intersex support group in the world.
Founded in 2003 by Curtis Hinkle, OII is a decentralised network established to give voice to intersex people primarily outside the USA, those speaking languages other than just English, and people who do not fit the medicalised categories of disorder promoted by some other intersex groups: it is for people born with bodies which have atypical sexual characteristics. OII rejects the terminology of disorder (as in Disorders of sex development), as well as the sexualization of intersex (as in intersexuality) within an LGBT framework; rather OII seeks to acknowledge intersex people's own distinct sexuality, or non-sexuality, or as people who may identify as gay, lesbian, trans or straight, and in alliance with people of diverse sexual orientations.

Their objective is to bring about systemic change and resist the fear, shame, secrecy and stigma imposed upon adults as well as children through both the practice of non-consensual genital surgeries and the arbitrary assignment of a particular gender without informed consultation with the individual concerned. The ethos of the group is that people will hold different views as appropriate to the individual; this often entails treating as optional socially and medically constructed categories such as binary genders, sexual identifications as well as specific and non-specific pathologisms; the identity human being being seen as the fundamental identity.

Trans-homo Couple Plans to Wed on Fidel Castro’s Birthday in Cuba

HAVANA – A transsexual and a homosexual Cuban will marry on Aug. 13 in Havana in the first wedding of this type to be held on the island on a date that coincides with the 85th birthday of former President Fidel Castro, the betrothed said.

Wendy Iriepa, a 37-year-old who underwent a sex-change operation in 2007 on the island, and Ignacio Estrada, a 31-year-old gay man who is seropositive, will marry in an open ceremony that they hope will mark a “before and an after” in Cuba with dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez as matron of honor.

“We met on May 13 of this year and we always intended to get married three months later,” Estrada – who considers himself gay but had fallen in love with Wendy, now a woman – said.

But the couple also decided to tie the knot on the “controversial” date of Aug. 13 to coincide with Castro’s 85th birthday and emphasize the “gigantic” step their union will signify for the island’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual, or LGBT, community.

Castro, in an interview a year ago, acknowledged the homophobic persecution gays and lesbians suffered in Cuba at the beginning of his revolution, and he admitted his responsibility for not paying “enough attention” to the deed that he called a “great injustice,” Estrada said.

“We would like everyone to see the date of our wedding from his point of view and we believe that our marriage will mark a before and an after,” Estrada said.

Ignacio admitted that this wedding can be held thanks to the sex-change surgeries promoted by the National Sex Education Center, or Cenesex.

That institution, headed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and niece of Fidel, in recent years has headed an insistent campaign to make the political elite and public opinion more amenable to respecting sexual diversity.

Among its achievements is the legalization of sex-change operations by government resolution in 2008.

Cenesex also has presented in the National Assembly a bill to modify the Family Code with elements such as legal unions for homosexuals, but this proposal still has not yet been approved.

Iriepa underwent a sex-change operation in 2007, before the decree, and this year she received official documentation recognizing her sex as being feminine, thanks to the efforts of Cenesex.

Two weeks ago, Iriepa was part of that institution’s working team, but she asked to resign after having “problems” with Mariela Castro because of her relationship with Estrada.

Mariela Castro “favored” Iriepa’s resignation, calling her a “dissident.”

In June, the LGBT group organized an unusual “walking march” for Gay Pride Day, something aside from Cenesex’s policy and working strategy.

Iriepa said that an invitation to their wedding will be extended to Mariela Castro and all Cenesex workers, although she feels that after her resignation the “treatment of her changed.”

“As a transsexual woman, I always cherished the dream of getting married. It’s something that I value a great deal,” Iriepa said, adding that other Cuban transsexuals who have undergone sex-change operations would like to marry but their identity changes still have not been officially recognized.

To date, 16 people have undergone that type of surgery on the island, but only three of those cases have been “resolved” regarding changing their identity documents, Iriepa said.

Yoani Sanchez, who is known for her criticism of the Cuban regime, said that she and her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, will be the matron of honor and the best man at the wedding.

Sanchez said they have been friends of Iriepa and Estrada for only a short time, but they are united by the struggle for “the acceptance of plurality” and she feels it is an “honor” to be asked to be the matron of honor.