Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday pardoned a United States Marine convicted of killing a transgender woman in the country nearly six years ago, sparking condemnation from activists who described the move as a “mockery of justice.”
Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton was jailed in 2015 for killing Jennifer Laude near a former U.S. navy base. A trial court signed off on his early release last week for good conduct, but was blocked by an appeal from Laude’s lawyers.
The Spahr Center is opening its Food Pantryto seniors who need support in meeting their nutrition needs. Items such as fresh meats, eggs and dairy, prepared meals, pasta, sauces, and canned goods are delivered weekly to people who sign up. Contact The Spahr Center for more information: info@thespahrcenter.org or 415/457.2487(I’m sorry, I listed the phone number incorrectly last Sunday)
Topical Thursdays12:30 to 2 pm
September 3: Nancy Flaxman facilitates. Work:As Labor Day approaches, we will talk about work. Most of us are retired, though some are still working. What role has work played in your life? Did you just kind of fall into jobs or did you choose your work? Did your work fully utilize your strengths? What parts of you can be more realized in retirement than in work? If you were just starting out and you could choose any profession, what would it be? What has and has not changed for LGBT people in the workplace?
September 10:What does your heart desire?Let’s share our dreams and yearnings, for we do still have them. Let’s support each other in going for them and determining next steps. Leon Brown, who served 30 years on death row in North Carolina before being exonerated by DNA evidence, has said: “Become the person you were meant to be, light your inner fire and follow your heart’s desire.” It’s not too late for hopes. That inner fire can see us through these difficult times.
Check-in Mondays7 to 8 pm We catch up with each other on how we’re doing and have unstructured conversations focused on listening.
a pioneering 1978 documentary on the lives of lesbians and gays Save the date!Spahr’s 1st Friday Night at the Movies September 25 @ 7 pm Film trailer here: Word is Out
Also in this email:Volunteer opportunities to work from home to get people registered and committed to voting in November’s vital election.Updated Senior Resources link at the bottom of this email.Rental Assistance available.Upcoming Events link below, thanks to the Social Committee!Bisexual Support zoom group forming at The Spahr Center.
Creating Community in the Midst of Sheltering-in-PlaceSee old friends and make new ones! Join us! The Spahr Center’s LGBT Senior Discussion Groupscontinue every Thursday, 12:30 t0 2 pm on Zoom
To Join Group by Video using Computer, Smart Phone or TabletJust click this button at the start time, 12:30 pm:Join GroupTry it, it’s easy!
To Join Group by Phone CallIf you don’t have internet connections or prefer joining by phone,call the following number at the start time, 12:30 pm:1-669-900-6833The Meeting id is 820 7368 6606#(no participant id required)The password, if requested, is 135296# If you want the meeting to call you to bring you into the group, notify Bill Blackburn 415/450-5339
A Bisexual Support Group is forming with The Spahr Center, facilitated by a therapist. Let Bill Blackburn know if you are interested.
Volunteer Opportunities to get people registered and committed to voting in the upcoming November election:Click here.
Whistlestop provides access to resources as well as free exercise classes, including zumba, yoga, chair exercises, & ukulele! Click here.
Adult and Aging Service’s Information and Assistance Line, providing information and referrals to the full range of services available to older adults, adults with disabilities and their family caregivers, has a new phone number and email address: 415/473-INFO (4636) 8:30 am to 4:30 pm weekdays473INFO@marincounty.org
Marin Center for Independent Living is offering various kinds of support to people with disabilities as well as older adults to prepare them for a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS).Click here: MarinCIL Has your employment or business been impacted by COVID-19? Check out these local resources…click here: WorkForce Alliance
Snap Back Assistance, up to $800 for COVID-19 affected workers:Call: 415/473-3300
Questions? Assistance? We have resources and volunteers for:grocery deliveryfood assistancehelp with technology issues such as using zoomproviding weekly comfort calls to check in on youtherapy with Spahr therapists on a sliding scale basis, plus more!
Two men have been charged with robbery against three transgender women on the evening of Aug. 17 in Hollywood.
Carlton Callaway, 29, and Davion Williams, 22, will face charges including robbery and assault in connection with the attack on Hollywood Blvd according to a news release issued by the L.A. County district attorney’s office.
Transgender Instagram influencer Eden the Doll, Jaslene Whiterose and Joslyn Flawless were attacked while on the Walk of Fame around 2 a.m. The women were verbally and then physically assaulted which was captured on video and streamed live as it was happening.
Callaway allegedly befriended the three victims and later assaulted them while Williams allegedly joined the attack and stole from one of the women.
Carlton Alexander Callaway of Compton faces one felony count each of grand theft from the person of another, second-degree robbery, criminal threats, attempted second-degree robbery, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury. Callaway also used a steel rod as a weapon during the attack.
Davion Anthony Williams of Compton faces one felony count each of grand theft and assault with a deadly weapon, which was a rideshare scooter used during the attack.
The case includes allegations that the crimes committed were hate crimes after police alleged they made derogatory comments about the victims’ gender identities during the alleged attack.
Deputy District Attorney Richard Ceballos of the Hate Crimes Unit is the assigned prosecutor.
The district attorney’s office rejected charges against a third suspect arrested in the case, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the situation.
Callaway was arrested in mid-August by police in Bakersfield, but was released a few days later when prosecutors referred the case back for further investigation under the pressure of the LGBTQ+ community and activists. Callaway’s release from jail drew outrage among the LGBTQ community forcing action to be taken.
Callaway and Williams deny knowing each other despite being from the same neighborhood.
It was not immediately clear if Callaway or Williams had attorneys who could speak on their behalf Tuesday evening.
The district attorney’s office said arraignment would take place at a later date.
If convicted as charged, Callaway faces up to 13 years and four months in prison, and Williams faces up to eight years and four months in prison, according to the district attorney’s office.
Commenting on the incident, L.A. City Council member Mitch O’Farrell said his district does not welcome such conduct. He also asked the onlookers to contact him so they could apologize to the victims.
There have been at least 26 transgender or gender non-conforming people killed by acts of violence in the United States in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Last year, advocates tracked 27 killings, the majority of whom were Black transgender women, the HRC says.
For the attendees of a circuit party in Georgia, coronavirus was the last thing on their minds.
Across digital flyers and social media posts, the organisers of Peach Party Atlanta 2020 urged attendees to come wearing face coverings and practice social distancing.
Yet, as much as the four-day festival was billed as a dialled-down affair, video footage taken at the sold-out circuit parties showed a vastly different story.
At the August 28 “Peach Party Tea Dance” held at Atanta LGBT+ club Heretic, scores of partygoers stuffed into the 1,000 square foot-wide space across three patios, fans occasionally dotting the dancefloor.
Despite signs instructing partygoers to maintain a distance as well as wear masks, the dance area was rammed with countless men pressed up against one another, and barely anyone was wearing a mask.
Similar scenes took place at a second Peach Party event held in Heretic the following night, as well as another event at District Atlanta on August 30, according to social media videos uploaded by attendees.
Just one event was held outdoors – the other six were in nightclubs, spaces considered by health experts as petri dishes for the coronavirus.
(Screen captures via Instagram)
Scenes of shirtless, maskless men at gay circuit party spark fury online.
For nine years, Peach Party has been a highlight of the Georgia circuit party calendar and a crucial way for the city’s LGBT+ community to blow off steam.
The beloved festival, typically held in June, was thrown into jeopardy as the coronavirus began to gnaw on nearly every facet of modern life and was delayed earlier this year.
Peach Party announced it would be running in August, with its website saying it has “scaled all events back to a small group instead of the normal party”, and noted that masks were “required”.
Heretic’s general manager Alan Collins beamed with pride in an August 13 Facebook post as he showed off a revamped patio space outside the club, now splashed with the colours of the Pride flag, prepping for the outdoor party.
Heretic hosted a queer circuity outdoor party event where patrons appeared to rarely wear face masks or conduct social distancing, despite club operators saying it would be mandatory. (Screen captures via Instagram)
He urged club-goers to come wearing masks and said that staffers could provide free masks as needed.
Moreover, Collins said, Heretic would operate at 35 per cent capacity and had installed hand sanitiser stations, in line with the Georgia Department of Health’s guidelines for bars operating amid the pandemic.
The code states that bars must “prevent activities that enable close human contact”, and that, for temporary outdoor events in which more than 50 people are attending, social distancing must be enforced.
“If you are sick or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19, PLEASE STAY HOME,” Collins added.
As images of the Peach Party crowds radiated online, some Facebook users branded those in attendance as “reckless”, while others simply resigned to saying: “No one cares anymore.”
At the time of writing, there have been at least 256,544 cases and 5,604 deaths in Georgia since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database. More than 187,000 people have died across the US.
PinkNews contacted Peach Party Atlanta, Heretic and District for comment.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden added several former Obama administration officials as well as former South Bend, Ind. mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg to his transition team.
According to multiple media outlets, former National Security advisor Susan Rice and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are joining the transition team.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and Jeff Zients, former President Obama’s National Economic Council director, will also reportedly join the transition team as co-chairs.
Dictionary.com has released its “biggest ever update”, revising definitions and adding 650 new words relating to race, mental health, climate and the LGBT+ community.
The dictionary has revised the definitions of many LGBT+ words to put “people first”, including replacing the word “homosexual” with the words “gay, gay man, or gay woman”.
The site explained: “For example, we now define gayness as ‘gay or lesbian sexual orientation or behavior’ compared to the outmoded gloss of ‘homosexuality’. These changes alone affect over 50 entries.
“The previously used terms, homosexual and homosexuality, originated as clinical language, and dictionaries have historically perceived such language as scientific and unbiased.
“But homosexual and homosexuality are now associated with pathology, mental illness, and criminality, and so imply that being gay – a normal way of being – is sick, diseased, or wrong.”
The online dictionary has also given Pride – with a capital P – its own entry “to better document the specific, widespread use of the term”.
Dictionary.com added that the revisions will “help eliminate heterosexual bias in language, they also help better convey the diversity and richness of… human sexual experience and identity”.
Other new LGBT+ entries on Dictionary.com include the words “ace, ambisextrous, asexual, biromantic, deadname, gender-inclusive, gender diversity, and trans+”.
Another major update to the dictionary was the capitalisation of the word Black when used in reference to people.
“Capitalising Black confers the due dignity to the shared identity, culture, and history of Black people,” the site said.
“Dictionaries are not merely a linguistic exercise or academic enterprise.
“What are the effects of Black, referring to human beings, being grouped together with black, which can mean, among other things, ‘wicked’?
“The effects are social. They are psychological. They are personal. How words are entered into the dictionary – especially words concerning our personal identities – have real effects on real people in the real world.”
Dictionary.com added: “Change is constant, a principle that’s true in language as in life.
“No matter what is happening in the world, we’re committed to documenting and describing – and helping you stay informed on and, yes, sometimes entertained by – the English language as it evolves.”
Texas assistant attorney general Nick Moutos has lost his job after he was criticised for past tweets in which he called trans people an “abomination” and promoted the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories.
Moutos is a lawyer and, until this week, was an assistant attorney general in Texas’ criminal prosecutions division.
On Thursday (September 3) Media Matters produced a report detailing Moutos’s racist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic and Islamophobic tweets, as well as his support of the controversial conspiracy theories. Every tweet included in the report was published by Mouto in 2020.
QAnon followers, among many outlandish claims, believe that Satan-worshipping paedophile rings involving high-ranking officials are working to take down president Donald Trump. Those who believe the conspiracy theory have been accused of inciting violence, and it was labelled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI last year.
Pizzagate is another right-wing violence-linked conspiracy theory which preceded QAnon, and its supporters believe that Democrats have been trafficking children through a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC.
In July this year, Twitter announced that it would be cracking down on QAnon content on the platform.
Moutos responded to the announcement: “Q must be getting close to outing you as a pedophile or child trafficker or perhaps involved with Pizzagate?”
He has repeatedly used his Twitter account to refer to women, including house representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, as “Whore of Babylon”. When tweeting at both women, he used the hashtag “no warning shots” and suggested he was “armed and ready”.
Moutos is viciously Islamophobic, comparing Muslims to Nazis, and has also said that Omar is an “incestuous jihadi terrorist” who belongs in Guantanamo Bay.
He has described Islam as a “virus” that “seeks only to steel, kill, and destroy”, and claimed that the UK is “overrun with Muslims”.
The lawyer believes that the US is in the middle of a second civil war, and threatened Barrack Obama on Twitter: “I pray to meet you on the Civil War 2 battlefield.”
Moutos has also posted multiple anti-LGBT+ tweets, including ones calling trans people “abhorrent” and “an abomination” who “have a mental disorder”, and saying that supporting queer rights is “normalising perversion”.
Texas assistant attorney general Nick Moutos lost his job following the backlash against his comments.
Initially, when contacted about Nick Moutos and his comments on Twitter, a spokesperson for Texas’ office of the attorney general told Media Matters: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
“We’re looking into the matter and will address it as appropriate.”
But now, according to the Houston Chronicle, a spokesperson for the office said he no longer works there, without specifying why.
Moutos, however, wrote on Twitter: “Speaking out against the China Virus Plandemic [sic] & Democrats using it to steal Election 2020 makes people angry.
“Stories slamming me and others… were enough to cost me my job.”
On Friday (September 4), addressing the backlash against his anti-LGBT+ comments Moutos wrote on Twitter: “How is it ‘bigoted’ to say that LGBTQ is an abomination?”
Prejudice and discrimination against transgender people is common in Haiti, but at least one organization is providing a haven where they can feel welcome.
The Kay Trans Haiti center in the capital, Port-au-Prince, provides lodging and care for up to 10 transgender people. Funded by a Spanish health care company and the United Nations Development Program, Kay Trans Haiti is open to transgender people who have been victims of verbal or physical abuse. It provides services including a psychologist free of charge, and allows residents to stay for up to a year.
Once people graduate from the center, the program pays their rent for up to a year, after which they must become self-sufficient.
Kervens Mesidor sits on the floor of his bedroom eating a serving of rice and beans at the Kay Trans Haiti center, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020.Dieu Nalio Chery / AP file
Residents say the neighborhood surrounding the center has gradually become more accepting of them, creating a safe island in a city where they can often feel vulnerable and subject to abuse at any moment.
Haiti’s LGBTQ community continues to experience social stigma. Thousands of people in July marched against gay and transgender rights in a rally organized by some churches demanding that President Jovenel Moise rescind a decree that rewrites the 185-year-old penal code recognizing same-sex unions and tacitly allowing homosexuality.
In 2016, an LGBTQ cultural festival in Port-au-Prince was canceled after organizers received threats and a local official, calling it a violation of moral values, sought to ban it.
Laurent Voltus, a resident at the Kay Trans Haiti center, exhales cigarette smoke while dancing with friends at a club in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2020.Dieu Nalio Chery / AP file
In 2017, Haiti’s Senate passed two bills targeting LGBTQ Haitians. One would formalize a ban on same-sex marriage, and prohibit public demonstrations in favor of LGBTQ rights.
Residents of the Kay Trans center can bring their partners there, go out to clubs, and shop without fear of mistreatment from neighborhood shopkeepers, who have become increasing friendly and welcoming.
One of the residents, Semi Kaefra Alisha Fermond, 24, said she had a traumatic childhood because neighbors didn’t want her to play with their children.
“I am proud of myself now because I can wear women’s clothes and go everywhere,’’ she said. “At my mother’s home I can’t be like that.”
LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.Wednesdays 1:30-3pm. Online via Zoom. Next Wednesday, 9/9 we will be talking about 1960s Counterculture: CloudFarm and other Lesbian/Gay efforts at “getting back to the land.” Please contact me to enroll in this FREE class and receive a Zoom invite: cdungan@santarosa.edu
Drag queens don their colorful wigs, elaborate makeup and knee-high stiletto boots, but instead of stepping on a stage, they’re putting on a face covering, grabbing a takeout bag and bringing their musical numbers to fans’ doorsteps in San Francisco.
The Oasis nightclub is turning the boring dinner blues into “Meals on Heels,” dispatching drag queens like Amoura Teese and Kochina Rude to bring food, cocktails and socially distant lip-synching performances to people during the coronavirus pandemic.
On a recent evening, Rude delivered dinner to Kelsie Costa and her family in the city’s Marina District and then lip-synched the drag show classic “Finally” by CeCe Peniston.
“There’s not a lot to do these days with shelter in place and COVID and all that,” Costa said. “So gotta spice it up somehow. It’s really fun.”
Oasis owner D’Arcy Drollinger said it’s a way to reconnect with their fans and bring a little joy to those who haven’t had much to smile about recently.
“You have the choice: You can either give up, go home and call it a night, or you can put some duct tape on, find a song you don’t know that well and go out there and sell the number,” Drollinger said. “That’s how I’ve been looking at this whole thing, is we’ve got to sell the number. The show must go on.”
With the club’s shows on hiatus because of the pandemic, it also gives drag performers a chance to make some much-needed money and keep up with their passion.Subscribe to The Morning Email.Wake up to the day’s most important news.
“Drag is such a beating heart of the city,” Rude said. “So it’s not only good for us, but it’s good for the people around us in our community. I’m inspired by it, and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
