News

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UN Body Condemns Sri Lanka’s Criminalization of Same-Sex Acts

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In a major judgment issued this week, a United Nations treaty body called on Sri Lanka’s government to repeal its law criminalizing adult, consensual same-sex conduct – including between women. The case was brought under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, an LGBT rights activist who faced harassment and discrimination for her sexual orientation and human rights advocacy on behalf of sexual and gender minorities. The judgment by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concerned Sri Lanka’s Penal Code, a relic of British colonial rule that dates to 1883. […]

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Marin’s Spahr Center Transgender Day of Visibility Happens March 31

We will be hosting a community art making event to decorate our upstairs meeting space! Drop in anytime between 4pm and 7pm on Thursday March 31 to make art, listen to music, and be in community. We will provide refreshments!  About TDOVTransgender Day of Visibility is recognized internationally as an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments and resilience of the trans community. TDOV was founded by activist Rachel Crandall in 2009 to bring visibility, gather the community together, and highlight both the power and continued discrimination of trans people around the world. Last year, the Board of Supervisors and towns of Fairfax, […]

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Spy agency chat rooms became a ‘dumpster fire’ of ‘racist, homophobic’ hate speech during the Trump years: report

Before Mike Pompeo served as secretary of state in the Trump Administration, he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency — a position he held from January 2017 to April 2018. According to Daily Beast reporters Jeff Stein and Howard Altman, it was during Trump’s first year in office and Pompeo’s months as CIA director that spy agency chat rooms first saw a major increase in hate speech. And it only got worse after that. The Beast journalists report, “Dan Gilmore, who worked in an administrative group overseeing internal chat rooms for the classified Intelink system for over a decade from […]

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Deadly Violence against LGBT People in Iraq

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In February news circulated that a 23-year-old transgender woman, Doski Azad, had been killed by her brother in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I read the news, having just concluded my research on armed groups’ killings, abductions, torture, and sexual violence against LGBT people in Iraq, and thought, how can LGBT people get justice and accountability when they can be killed and abused with impunity, even in their own homes? Over the past six months, I interviewed 54 LGBT Iraqis who have survived harrowing violence at the hands of Iraqi armed groups and the police. Some of them also had intimate knowledge […]

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SF Rainbow Railroad Film Screening & Concert Benefits LGBT+ Asylum Seekers

Rainbow Railroad is coming to San Francisco! We are co-presenting the San Francisco Bay Area premiere of “Being Bebe: The BeBe Zahara Benet Documentary” at the Roxie on March 31st, 2022, including an exclusive meet & greet with Bebe herself! We also have VIP tickets to an exclusive concert with Bebe on April 1st – AND you’re invited to BOTH! Marshall Ngwa (a.k.a. renowned drag performer BeBe Zahara Benet) came to the United States from a homophobic Cameroon with dreams of a better life and became the first winner of the now-iconic reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009.  With 15 years of intimate access to Marshall’s […]

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The Rainbow Connection of the Sebastopol SeniorCenter’s April Events

LGBT+ Friendship Mixer April 4th 1 to 3 pm Come meet your LGBT+ Friends and Neighbors  What: LGBT+ Friendship MixerWhen: Monday April 4th, 1 – 3 pmWhere: Sebastopol Senior Center in personWhy: Meet new LGBT+ folksCost: Free to members, $5 non-membersGo HERE to register:Or call our front desk: 707-829-2440We will be in the back room with the double doors open to the outside. Folks may sit out side during this Mixer. This event is for everyone wanting to make a new friend. We will spend the first hour in a structured activity, “speed friending,” where you will get to talk with new people (both men and women). You will spend 5 minutes in a […]

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A Petaluma elementary school’s pride flag was stolen. So 4 other schools raised flags of their own

Every morning, for much of the past year, three flags have been raised above Miwok Elementary School in east Petaluma – the U.S. flag, the California state flag and a pride flag. Sometime in January, that changed. The school’s progress pride flag, supplementing the traditional rainbow stripes with a chevron recognizing BIPOC and transgender communities, went missing. A police investigation was launched, but there are no leads, leaving concerned parents and school community members to speculate while also working to fashion a response to the jarring incident. In the wake of what some school administrators have called a de-facto hate […]

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DeSantis Signs “Don’t Say Gay” Bill Into Law

NPR reports: Public school teachers in Florida are now banned from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity after Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the controversial “Parental Rights in Education” bill. The bill, which some opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay,” was signed by DeSantis on Monday. It reads, “A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels.” But DeSantis was defiant in the face of critics, “I don’t care what Hollywood says. I don’t care what big corporations say. Here I stand. I am not backing down.” […]

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Arizona GOP votes to restrict transgender sports, operations

The Arizona Legislature passed bills Thursday to prohibit gender reassignment surgery for minors and ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams, joining a growing list of Republican-controlled states attempting to restrict transgender rights as they gain more visibility in culture and society. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has not said whether he will sign either bill. Two GOP governors this week bucked conservatives in their party and vetoed bills in Indiana and Utah requiring trans girls to play on boys sports teams. Republicans have said blocking transgender players from girls sports teams would protect the integrity of women’s sports, […]

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Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

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In early January, a day before students returned from winter break, Jeremy Glenn, the superintendent of the Granbury Independent School District in North Texas, told a group of librarians he’d summoned to a district meeting room that he needed to speak from his heart. “I want to talk about our community,” Glenn said, according to a recording of the Jan. 10 meeting obtained and verified by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Glenn explained that Granbury, the largest city in a county where 81 percent of residents voted for then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, is “very, very conservative.” […]

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