Positive Images 200 Montgomery Dr Suite C Santa Rosa
“This training provides an opportunity for LGBTQ community members to learn to identify what makes a relationship healthy. By understanding what makes a relationship healthy, participants can better identify risk of violence or coercive behavior.”
https://www.facebook.com/events/636767583401696/
Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Communities
Wednesday July 10th from 1-5pm
La Plaza at Lincoln Elementary 850 West 9th St, Santa Rosa
“This training provides an opportunity for service providers to learn about the dynamics of intimate partner violence that are specific to LGBTQ communities and the need for specialized services for LGBTQ survivors of intimate partner violence. Participants will learn to understand intimate partner violence in LGBTQ communities in terms of the workings of heterosexism and cissexism, as well as how to better identify and support LGBTQ survivors in interactive activities. This training will also provide a brief introduction into the importance of screening and assessment, as well as tools and resources for providing culturally accessible and affirming services and support for LGBTQ survivors.”
https://www.facebook.com/events/2259419960986981/
Please join us for both of these wonderful trainings! Follow the links to learn more information. We’ve attached fliers for next week’s trainings and invite you to share it with anyone you think would be interested!
If you haven’t joined our Facebook group yet, please do so! We are hoping this will be an easy way to share information and announcements in the coming months. You can join the group here:
Human Rights Watch has updated our marriage equality map, which provides an overview of countries with marriage equality, civil unions or registered partnership; links to the relevant legislation; and, where possible, a brief explanation of the path – legislative, judicial, or other – that these countries took to achieve marriage equality or to provide for same-sex civil unions or registered partnership.
As legal situations change in countries, this map will be further updated.
In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to open civil marriage to same-sex couples. Other countries followed. Today there are 28 countries with marriage equality—most recently, Austria, Ecuador and Taiwan– with Costa Rica expected to join the list soon.
An additional fourteen countries have made civil unions or registered partnerships available for same-sex couples. In some cases, civil unions or registered partnership provide all the same rights and responsibilities of civil marriage and differ in name only; countries with such laws include Croatia, Greece, Slovenia and Switzerland. In other cases, civil unions provide some, but not all, of these rights.
In 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion on the interpretation of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights in respect of marriage equality. The Court encouraged member states to take actions towards eliminating discrimination and achieving marriage equality.
There are causes to celebrate during Pride Month, as laws and policies continue to improve LGBT rights around the world.
We hope this map will assist those who are looking for this type of information. We decided to only mark independent countries on our map and not overseas territories, regions, departments or possessions. That’s why we did not include Bermuda, Greenland or Aruba for instance. If you have additional information, you can contact Human Rights Watch via lgbt@hrw.org
Recognition of same-sex relationships
Click on each country for a snapshot of current legislation. For more information and Human Rights Watch reporting on LGBT rights, click on the country name in the black pop-up box.
According to The Guardian, the group are the first of 15 LGBT+ refugees finally coming to London after they were accepted onto a resettlement scheme, which is supposed to be faster than the lengthy asylum process, more than two years ago.
During that time, they have been waiting in Turkey where, although being gay is legal, homophobic and transphobic abuse are common and the government ruled that the group were in danger in the country.
Members of the group received death threats and were having to hide in safe houses to avoid violence, the newspaper reported.
The four refugees are in a “state of joy,” and the 11 others are expected to follow soon.
They will be able to openly express being LGBT+ for the first time. (Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Media via Getty)
The refugees “will proudly march with Pride for the first time in their lives”
Toufique Hossain and Sheroy Zaq, solicitors who launched the legal action, told The Guardian: “These men have been forced to conceal an enormous part of their identity, not just in their country of origin but also in Turkey.
“The detriment they suffered as a result of their sexuality in Turkey simply could not go on any longer; we had to ensure that their resettlement was expedited through legal channels.
“We are elated that they will at last be able to be open about their sexuality in all walks of life, just in time for Pride.”
The refugees were offered housing by the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and the leader of the council also told the publication: “No one anywhere should ever face death threats because of their sexuality.
“I’m so happy that we have been able to provide safe refuge for these young people and that tomorrow they will proudly march with Pride for the first time in their lives.”
On the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, Los Angeles received its first rainbow crosswalk.
The City of LA and Venice Pride organization a commemoration ceremony today, outside of Roosterfish in Venice, where the crosswalk is located. Roosterfish is a gay bar that was successfully reopened last year with the help of Venice Pride.
The permanent crossing is modeled after the iconic rainbow crosswalks in the Castro District of San Francisco. There is a rainbow crosswalk already in the City of West Hollywood, at Robertson Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard and in the City of Long Beach, along the strip of gay bars on Broadway Avenue.
“While there were many notable historic events on the road to equality before this event, notably some significant ones in Los Angeles including the Black Cat and Doughnut Riots, Stonewall is widely hailed as the beginning of the modern LGBT civil rights movement and culminated in the first Pride March (later adapted into parade format),” Venice Pride stated in a press release. “Stonewall is a historical gay bar located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.”
Venice Pride thanked Mike Bonin, Sheila Kuehl, Ben Allen and Autumn Burke for their commitment to LGBTQ+ equality.
“A rainbow crosswalk on @abbotkinneyblvd at the doorstep of storied gay bar – what a colorful way to end Pride Month in L.A! We look forward to dedicating the crosswalk with the City of L.A. in recognition of #Stonewall50 and celebrating all we have achieved since ‘69. You fill us with pride and joy,” the Facebook post continued.Photo: Morgan Genser.
The unveiling of the new rainbow crosswalk took place at Roosterfish, located at 1302 Abbot Kinney Blvd. Speakers in attendance were: Taylor Bazley, Office of L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin; Lisa Lubchansky, Board Member, Venice Pride; Grant Turck, Board President, Venice Pride; Michael Weinstein, President, Aids Healthcare Foundation; Will Gaines, Office of State Senator Ben Allen; David Dancer, Chief Marketing Officer, MedMen; Stephanie Cohen, Office of Supervisor Sheila Kuhel ; Kim Sharp, Abbot Kinney Festival Association; Erinn Berkson, Abbot Kinney Merchant’s Association; Mario Vollera, Partner, Roosterfish; Ari Ruiz, Office of Assemblywoman Autumn Burke
The Gay Liberation Front, the U.K.’s long running activist collective, has released new demands for their continued fight.
The collective was founded in London nearly 50 years ago, following the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, and staged the first Pride in London. Now, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the iconic throwing of the first brick by Marsha P. Johnson, the collective wants to reignite the spirit of rebellion in Pride.
On June 17, a cross-generational group made up of original members of the Gay Liberation Front and younger activists took to Trafalgar Square to recreate the first Pride in London and “to remember and reinvigorate the fires that fought back against centuries of oppression and seemingly overwhelming odds” as Ted Brown (original and presently active Gay Libertion Front member) stated. Brandishing banners replicating those from the 1970 protest and chanting the collective launched is aptly titled: “A NEW AGREEMENT ABOUT PRIDE EVENTS FOR A NEW WORLD AGE” – a 7-point intervention aimed at making Pride safe, accessible and inclusive.
The intervention demands are based in a historical valuing of the movement as well as an understanding of the intersection of numerous struggles which come to the attention of LGBTQ+ activists in modern day U.K. and the world.
1. Pride is FREE: Pride organizers who want ticketed events must arrange free Pride marches as well. No one should be denied entry to Pride because they don’t have enough money.
2. Pride is always a protest as well as a celebration. We’ve a whole world yet to change and we’ve hardly begun.
3. LGBT+ community groups actively engaged in grassroots LGBTQIA+ empowerment programs, or key allies such as the miners in the 1980s, always to head Pride marches.
4. Arms dealers and other corporations who trade with nations in violation of the U.N. International Charter on Human Rights are never again to be allowed to sponsor or have floats at Pride marches. Individual LGBT employees of such corporations are welcome as always, but not marching in groups sporting corporate logos.
5. The target is to be vehicle-free: No diesel-powered vehicles unless for mobility or safety reasons.
6. Full accessibility and reminders to LGBT-friendly venues near the March that full accessibility is the target.
7. Gay Liberation Front to lead Pride in London in 2020.
The U.K., even with the Equality Act of 2010 which protects all people against discrimination, has seen a rise in hate crimes over the past five years. On June 7, a lesbian couple was beaten on a bus by a group of young men for refusing to kiss in front of them. Stuart Feather, author of “Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens” and original Gay Liberation Front activist, and firebrand of the struggle stated, “Gay Liberation will always be a socialist movement by virtue of its demand for social change.”
Noting the value in cross-generational collaboration in activism and paying it forward, Nettie Pollard said, “We did what we did to rescue ourselves, but we always thought of you as well — you who would come out after us, and will come out until the world ends.”
The initiative was supported by Queer Tours of London, a collective of LGBTQ+ activists based in London and around the world whose work merges research, education, entertainment and radical activism in order to advocate for social justice and preservation of queer histories as inscribed in the streets of London. With the fight for global decriminalization of queer livelihoods in Commonwealth states progressing — Botswana being the most recent state to abolish colonial laws — the 2022 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Pride in London are set to be another monumental landmark in the expansive history of the Gay Liberation Front. On the build up calendar is a series of tours curated and guided in collaboration with the Gay Liberation Front featuring original members who show that they’re still packing in some fighting spirit.
“We believe that communities are empowered when they are represented,” said the contest’s organisers, Stardom Space and Project PoSSUM (Polar Suboribital Science in the Upper Mesosphere).SPONSORED CONTENTM
“Our goal is to train and fly a member of the LGBT+ community as a scientist-astronaut.”
The chosen astronaut would serve as “an ambassador” to the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) industries, according to the contest website.
It states that currently, more than 40 percent of LGBT+ people in STEM are not out, with queer students less likely to follow academic careers than their straight peers.
“Astronauts inspire our youth, represent limitless possibilities, and serve as ambassadors to STEM,” Out Astronaut said.
“Astronauts inspire our youth and represent limitless possibilities.”
—Out Astronaut
The contest is in its first phase, with applications open to scientists or students aged 18- to 39-years-old who are residents of the US, Canada, Mexco, the Caribbean or Central America.
After applications close on July 15, 12 finalists will be chosen and put forward for a social media vote.
The final winner will be chosen by Out Astronaut and announced on September 8. They will receive a full scholarship to attend the Advanced PoSSUM Academy, with lodging and a round-flight trip included.
Out Astronaut is currently seeking funding for the second page of the project–which would see the top four contestants attend a year-long applied astronautics programme, and a third and final phase which would send one LGBT+ scientist into space.
Who was the first gay astronaut?
While there have been no openly LGBT+ astronauts up until now, one notable space explorer was revealed to have been queer following her death.
Sally Ride became the United States’ first woman in space on June 18, 1983, but kept her sexuality private until her death in 2012.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict — ostensibly not about LGBTQ issues and thousands of miles from the U.S. — has become a potent flashpoint within the queer community.
For years, the debate over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has roiled LGBTQ gatherings and parades where Jewish groups wanted to display symbols of the religion. In 2017, organizers of the Chicago Dyke March kicked women out for carrying the Pride flag with a Star of David, citing its resemblance to the Israeli flag.
This month, a soon-to-open gay bar in Minneapolis became embroiled in the dispute when a journalist unearthed tweets by the bar’s owner calling for the death of all Israelis. The owner also accused Zionist Jews, broadly defined as those who support a Jewish state in Israel in some form, as running America. The tweets were both anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist, but in many other recent controversies, parsing those two ideologies can be divisive.
As it is, many Americans living at the intersection of Jewish and queer identities have been alarmed by news reports that affect the two groups: synagogue shootings, rollbacks in federal rights for LGBTQ people, swastikas painted on Jewish institutions, Israeli and Pride flags being burned and urinated on and rising hate crimes against Jews and queer people. Activists say that shared sense of alarm should prevent political disagreements over Israel from boiling over into anti-Semitism.
A.J. CAMPBELL
“It’s important that we all call out anti-Semitism in our own spaces,” said Amanda Berman, founder of the “unabashedly progressive” and “unquestionably Zionist” group Zioness. “It’s hard work to call it out in your own movement.”
CONFRONTATION OVER SYMBOLS
At this year’s Creating Change conference in Detroit, a national event that focuses on LGBTQ issues, pro-Palestinian protestors disruptedthe opening ceremony to condemn the lack of Palestinian programming. At the 2016 conference, in Chicago, the pro-Israel LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge shut down its event and evacuated guests because of intense protests.
A participant holds a rainbow flag with a Star of David symbol during the LA Pride Parade in West Hollywood on June 10, 2018.Roven Tivony / NurPhoto via Getty Images file
Whether that flag that has produced so many protests is Jewish, Israeli or both is complicated. The Star of David has been a Jewish symbol for hundreds and possibly thousands of years, long before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. The Pride flag with the Jewish star in the middle of a rainbow background is the most common symbol of Jewish LGBTQ Pride, but it is not the official Israeli Pride flag, which replaces the two blue banners at the top and bottom of the Israeli flag with rainbow colors.
Rae Gaines, 30, is an organizer of the Dyke March in Washington that took place June 7. Gaines, who is Jewish but anti-Zionist, said it was unfortunate that Jewish women were kicked out of the Chicago march and wanted the situation handled better in Washington. Organizers there decided to ask attendees not to bring “nationalist symbols” of any country, but allowed Palestinian flags because they “don’t yet have a nation.”
“It can be scary to be a Jew. I can relate to the fear of existing,” Gaines said. “I wanted to relate to that, but without being nationalist.”
Gaines said march organizers had alternate Jewish Pride flags on hand and intended to ask anyone with a Star of David on their flag to swap them out in order to avoid making Palestinians feel unwelcome or unsafe. However, the nuanced approach Gaines hoped for turned into a bitter public confrontation.
A.J. Campbell, 50, an activist, contacted the march to ask about bringing the rainbow flag with the Jewish star, with the events in Chicago in mind. She was angered when she was told it “would not be welcome.” She took the issue to the media, and it was widely reported and condemned as a ban. The National LGBT Taskforce and the Human Rights Campaign disaffiliated from the march, condemning the policy as anti-Semitic and not inclusive.
“There’s Pride flags with crosses and crescent moons in the center. The Jewish star is our symbol,” Campbell said. “I would never ask Palestinians to censor their symbols,” she continued, noting that some Jews might feel unsafe around a Palestinian flag because of terror attacks against Israelis.
A group of 30 people, including Campbell, showed up to the Dyke March in Washington with their flags and argued with organizers about whether the placement of the star at the flag’s center was equated with Zionism and if the star should be placed elsewhere on the flag.
The group ultimately joined the march, flag in tow. Gaines said there was never an intention to block the flag but rather a hope people would understand why it wasn’t welcome.
“The narrative became that we were a space that was anti-Semitic, which was painful,” Gaines said. “I’m a Jew who loves being Jewish, so it hurts.”
EXCLUDED OVER MIDEAST POLITICS
Some LGBTQ Jews embrace the Jewish Pride flag’s similarity to the Israeli flag, saying they want to celebrate their connection to Israel as part of their intersectional identity. However, some say if they openly identify as anything other than anti-Zionist, they are unwelcome in certain queer spaces.
Emily Cohen, 36, a queer woman who runs an advocacy group for transgender people and other underserved groups in South Florida, said she is constantly defending her beliefs in LGBTQ spaces.
“It’s tiring to have to explain my position over and over,” she said. “There’s a line in the sand, you’re on one side or the other, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Emily Cohen on a trip to Tel Aviv with A Wider Bridge.Courtesy Emily Cohen
In 2012, Cohen ran an LGBTQ student center at a South Florida university. She said she kept her Judaism quiet, because the students were “vehemently anti-Israel.”
That experience inspired her to explore her connection to Israel, so she went on a mission there with A Wider Bridge.
She said she came back emboldened to defend her support for Israel existing as a Jewish state, clarifying that she would like to see an end to the conflict and a Palestinian state. But she said the situation is complicated and cannot be blamed on or fixed solely by Israel.
She explains to friends that the Israeli government does not represent all Israelis, just as President Donald Trump does not speak for all Americans. Still, she said some of her queer friends dismissed her trip as a brainwashing effort by Israel supporters.
She said that sometimes the comments are blatantly anti-Semitic.
“People talk as if Jews are racist and elitist for wanting their own country, that Jews like to steal land,” she said. “It’s super uncomfortable for me.”
Cohen points out that in Israel, most LGBTQ people live safely with many rights, even if far from full equality, while many queer people in Palestine cannot live openly. She asks why pro-Palestinian queer people don’t specifically condemn queer oppression in Palestine, noting a report of Hamas executing a gay man in Gaza by throwing him off a building.
Gaines, the Washington march organizer, said that discussion of condemning the reported Palestinian brutality against queer people did not come up in planning meetings for the march, which considered itself “fiercely” pro-Palestinian. “Perhaps that’s something we can talk about for next year,” Gaines said.
Alyssa Rubin, 24, a queer activist with IfNotNow, a group that advocates ending the occupation of Palestinians, also declined to specifically condemn Palestinian oppression of queer people.
“Palestinians deal with multiple systems of oppression — from the occupation to the patriarchy and homophobia,” she said.
But, unlike many progressive activists, she also declined to dismiss Pride events in Israel, such as last week’s parade in Tel Aviv with over 250,000 participants, as “pinkwashing,” or an attempt to distract from the occupation of Palestinians.
“Queer Israelis have a right to celebrate being queer,” Rubin said. “Terrible things are happening in the U.S. right now, but we still celebrate Pride. The Dyke March has anti-colonialist politics, yet they’re in the U.S., colonial sins and all.”
Rubin said that while support for Israel can be a litmus test for Jews in queer spaces, it can also be a test for queers in Jewish spaces. She cited events in which Hillel, a Jewish organization across college campuses that supports Israel, banned queer Jewish groups that partner with anti-Zionist groups.
“Unquestionably supporting Israel should not be a requirement for Jews to support Jewish queers,” she said. “Hillel should support all queer Jews, regardless of Israel politics.”
All of the activists interviewed said their Jewish and queer identities are tightly bound and most said they have struggled to gain acceptance within the queer community, the Jewish community or both.
“We’ve made so much progress as queer Jews,” Campbell said. “I did not expect the next fight to be within the queer community.”
US Customs and Border Patrol agents at a migrant processing center in Texas allegedly attempted to humiliate a Honduran migrant by making him hold a sign that read, “I like men,” according to emails written by an agent who witnessed the incident.
The emails — obtained by CNN — were sent to the agent’s supervisor and outlined the March 5 episode in which a Honduran man was forced to hold a piece of paper that said, “Me gustan los hombre(s),” which translates to “I like men,” while being paraded through a migrant detention center.
The incident is one of many, per the emails, in which the CBP agent allegedly witnessed several colleagues displaying poor behavior and management’s failure to act.
Stacy Feintuch, a mother of two in suburban New Jersey, said she didn’t know what was wrong when her oldest daughter, Amanda, 17, began to withdraw.
“I confronted her and said, ‘You need to talk to me,’” Feintuch said: “She said, ‘It’s not what you think. I’m fine, it’s not that.”
“I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you.’”
Feintuch said her mind raced: “Is she pregnant? Is she in trouble?” Finally, Amanda buried her head in her pillow and said, “I’m gay.”
“I was just dumbfounded, just shocked. It wasn’t even a thought in my head,” Feintuch said. “I said, which ended up being the absolute wrong thing to say, ‘Why do you think this?’ She started screaming at me.”
“I said: ‘Take a breath, I didn’t mean anything by it. I love you. I’m shocked, I just want to talk to you about this.”
Amanda calmed down and, fortunately, they talked.
While Feintuch considers herself an accepting person, she still faced some immediate stress and shock when her child came out to her. That’s not uncommon. A new study conducted by researchers at George Washington University found that most parents of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth have difficulty adjusting after their kids come out.
The study says it is one of the first to systematically examine the experience of parents raising lesbian, gay and bisexual children. David Huebner, one of the study’s lead authors and a public health professor at George Washington University, said his team approached the study with a question: “Can we identify the families that most need intervention to support the families and protect the kids?”
The study found that African American and Latino parents have a harder time accepting their lesbian, gay and bisexual children, as do the parents of children who come out at a later age.
The study, which surveyed a much larger sample size than previous studies, confirmed smaller studies that showed parents’ negative reactions tend to ease over time; the first two years are the hardest for parents.
There were no significant differences in reactions between mother and father, the age of the parent, or the gender of the child. The study did not examine the reactions for the parents of transgender children.
In general, acceptance seems to be growing rapidly for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. “We see improvement in people’s respect for LGBT rights, we’ve seen political progress, concrete political progress, and we have also seen attitudes shifting at the population level,” Huebner said. “I think for parents, when you’re confronted with your own child who you love so fiercely, I think that reaction in that moment is a very personal one, and it’s one that’s hard to predict from public opinion.”
After Amanda came out, Feintuch told her daughter that she worried her life would become more difficult after having struggled with depression in high school. “I was hoping that now your time would get easier, and your life would get easier, and it scares me that it would be more difficult.”
“She’s like: ‘It’s not like how it was when you were growing up. There’s a lot of kids in my school who are gay. Its not a big deal,’” Feintuch said. “I had to get it through my head first, and get it through my mind: ‘This is how her life is going to be, and it’s going to be fine.’”
“It was about a year until Amanda was like, OK, definitely 100 percent, and then she had a girlfriend and then I saw it all come together.”
Huebner said his study is the first to measure these reactions and that previous studies of the parents of LGBTQ youth mostly recruited from accepting and friendly environments, like PFLAG, an organization for the parents of LGBTQ people.
“I think we have made a huge improvement here — 80 percent [of survey respondents] had never been to a support group, had never talked to a therapist,” Huebner said. “These were parents who had never before been heard from in research.”
Still, Huebner pointed to some potential oversights: “There’s reason to believe we are missing two groups of people: those super rejecting people, and those parents who were so immediately accepting that they also didn’t need the resources.”
Huebner hopes that this will allow advocates to devise materials so parents can better prepare themselves to accept and love their kids.
“Parents have the power to protect their kids, their LGBT kids, from all sorts of threatening forces,” Huebner said. “We know that when parents are supportive of their LGBT kids those kids have less depression and fewer risk behaviors.”
GLAAD and The Harris Poll’s annual Acceptance Index shows a decline in LGBTQ acceptance among younger Americans. At the same time, GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project counts more than 114 attacks on LGBTQ Americans from The Trump Administration since President Trump took office.
Additionally, anti-LGBTQ violence continues to plague LGBTQ Americans. GLAAD compiled the following partial list of incidents of violence from news coverage from January to June 2019. From the horrific murders of transgender women of color to other random acts of violence – this list is a snapshot of anti-LGBTQ violence in America and is not comprehensive. If you’ve seen examples of anti-LGBTQ violence reported on in the media, contact press@glaad.org.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
GLAAD mourns the loss of the following transgender women. For more about their lives please visit the Human Rights Campaign. GLAAD released the ‘More Than A Number’ report for more information on the epidemic of violence facing transgender Americans, especially transgender women of color, and best practices for reporting on this issue.
If you or someone you know has experienced anti-LGBTQ violence, please contact the Anti-Violence Project by calling their 24 hour free and confidential hotline at 212-714-1141 or vsiting their Report Violence site.
