Features

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Transgender Woman Attacked in Portland in What May be Hate Crime

Three people, including a transgender woman, were attacked in Portland, Oregon, in what police say may be a bias crime. The assault happened in a downtown parking lot around 2:30 a.m. Thursday, and the assailants had fled by the time officers arrived, Portland police said in a statement. Atlas Marshall, who said she was attacked near some food carts, believes she was targeted because she is transgender, NBC affiliate KGW of Portland reported.  “He saw me, visibly could tell I was trans, I was queer, and he started throwing homophobic and transphobic slurs at me,” Marshall told the station. She said that […]

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Yearly HIV Infections in San Francisco Drop to 197

Every year, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) publishes a comprehensive report on HIV incidence and prevalence in the city, showing HIV trends to guide the public health response. Continuing a downward trend since the peak of the HIV epidemic in the 1990s, the most recent report with 2018 data shares a historic milestone reached by the city: Fewer than 200 HIV diagnoses occurred in San Francisco. A total of 197 people were diagnosed with HIV last year in San Francisco. This is a 13% decline from 227 diagnoses made in 2017, and a 62% decline from 523 infections ten […]

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‘Lesbian’ ban: Ad Blacklists Deprive LGBTQ News of Revenue, Study Says

Across the internet, companies buy ad space that appears alongside news, entertainment and sports articles. These purchasing decisions are made, in part, with ad verification partners that compare the articles’ content with “block lists” of thousands of terms that advertisers want to avoid associating their brand with, like “shooting,” “kill” and “attack.” It doesn’t matter if the article is positive (“City’s murder rate down to historic low”) or negative (“Gruesome murder shocks city”), because both articles would be banned by a keyword block list. But a new study from CHEQ, which runs a competing ad verification service, found that nearly two […]

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Transgender ‘Conversion Therapy’ Associated with ‘Severe Psychological Distress’

Exposure to “conversion therapy” — efforts by a secular or religious professional to change a transgender person’s gender identity — is associated with thoughts of and attempts at suicide, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Dr. Jack Turban, the study’s lead author and a resident physician in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said it was the first study “to show that gender identity conversion efforts are associated with adverse mental health outcomes, including suicide attempts.” Turban said that previous reports showing the negative effects of conversion therapy, also known as “ex-gay therapy” or “reparative therapy,” have focused […]

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Black Transgender Woman, 23, Found Dead in Burned Car in Florida

A black transgender woman was found dead in her burning car in South Florida in what is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said. It is the 18th killing of a transgender person in the U.S. this year. The body of Bee Love Slater, 23, was discovered in Clewiston on Sept. 4, according to the Palm Beach Post. Hendry County Sheriff Susan Harrell told NBC News in a statement that authorities could not initially identify the body “due to the burns and lack of identification available.” A medical examiner later identified the body through dental records, Harrell said. According to The Advocate, […]

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A Winery Refused to Host a Same-sex Wedding Because of the Owner’s ‘Religious Beliefs’

A lesbian couple who asked to hold their wedding at a California winery were turned down because of the owner’s “religious beliefs.” One of the brides posted her correspondence with the winery on Facebook to call for a boycott after its “overt homophobia”. The email from Viaggio winery’s weddings and events director read: “While Viaggio Winery welcomes your business, we have never hosted a same-sex marriage. “[The owners] understand that California statutory law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, and they don’t like to think they would ever discriminate on that basis even if a law allowed them to do so. “However, […]

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What do people think of long-acting HIV meds?

Over the years, HIV has evolved into a chronic condition necessitating life-long medication. Now, researchers are studying the efficacy and acceptability of long-acting HIV medications that may keep thevirus under control for a month or longer. Can long-acting therapies provide an alternative to daily dosing? And, what do people who stand to benefit from this way of dosing think about the possibility of not having to take daily oral medications? “HIV has been part of my life for 33 or 34 years, and medication for almost 20,” said Efrén Solanas, a long-term survivor in the Bay Area. “I’ve been taking […]

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Can a Religious School Fire a Gay Teacher? It’s Complicated.

Lynn Starkey worked at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis for nearly 40 years. In May, however, the Roman Catholic school fired Starkey as a guidance counselor after officials discovered that she is married to a woman.  In July, Starkey, 63, sued the school and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, claiming, in part, that they discriminated against her on the basis of her sexual orientation. In May, the school’s principal notified Starkey, who has been married to her spouse since 2015, that her contract would not be renewed, stating in a letter that civil unions are in violation of her contract and “contrary to […]

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Activists Win a Grueling Battle Against an Anti-LGBT Church

Activists have won a long battle to stop an anti-LGBT+ church operating out of Texas a public school, after protesting every week for more than a year. Celebration Church, which is openly anti-LGBT+, had been renting space at the Austin Independent School District’s (AISD) Mueller Performing Arts Centre for its services. Protest organiser and pastor for the AntiFascism NonChristian Church, Candace Aylor, said in a press release: “This was the goal, getting bigots out of public spaces. It goes against our closely held beliefs to abide bigotry and oppression, especially when openly, publicly permitted.  “What we learned today, what we confirmed from what […]

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Zero for Zeros Campaign Calls Out Companies Who Fund Antigay Politicians

The Zero for Zeros campaign released today, a new round of companies who receive a perfect 100 rating from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), but use their corporate PACs to fund elected officials in Congress who lead opposition to LGBT equality. The list of anti-LGBT elected officials includes Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert as well as Senators Mike Enzi and Ted Cruz, among others. The campaign aims to pressure companies to review and end their financial support of these extreme anti-LGBT politicians. Today’s companies are some of the biggest consumer names in the world and include: […]

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