Perspectives

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Caster Semenya Takes Olympics Fight to Human Rights Court after Being Told she Can’t Compete without Altering Natural Hormones

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South African runner Caster Semenya has been forced to take her Olympics fight to the European Court of Human Rights after being told she can’t compete without altering her natural hormones. Intersex athlete and Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya has held back time and time again, having been repeatedly barred from competing in women’s sport unless she modifies her testosterone levels. World Athletics imposes hormone restrictions in women’s events from 400 metres to the mile, and last year tightened the restrictions even further. After a lengthy court battle, in September this year Semenya lost her final appeal to compete in the […]

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Football Association Boss Resigns after Referring to ‘Colored Footballers’ and Claiming Being Gay is a ‘Life Choice’

The chair of England’s Football Association, Greg Clarke, has resigned after referring to ‘coloured footballers’ and saying being gay is a ‘life choice’ in front of parliament. Clarke was, until yesterday, the chair of the Football Association (FA), which governs association football in England, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man. On Tuesday (10 November), Clarke attended a parliamentary hearing with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport via video call. But when answering questions from MPs on diversity in English football, he made a series of offensive and outdated comments about Black people, South Asian people, gay people […]

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Our Democracy Hinges on Decision in Fulton Case

Queer or non-queer, if you value democracy, civil rights and health care, nothing’s as scary as the Supreme Court. With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, there’s the reasonable concern that the court (with a 6-3 conservative, Republican majority) might rule in favor of Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. There’s the (not unreasonable) fear that millions of Americans will lose their health insurance if the court rules in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Then, there’s Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case that hasn’t gotten much attention in the midst of the election and the pandemic. […]

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Rugby Pro Dan Palmer Comes Out after Years of ‘Despising Himself’

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Dan Palmer has come out as gay, becoming the first Wallabies player and just the second men’s international to do so. In a moving column for the Sydney Morning Herald, the 32-year-old Australian former rugby union player described his mental health problems and drug abuse as he struggled to accept his sexuality, revealing that he regularly cried himself to sleep and even contemplated suicide. “I was incredibly frustrated, angry and desperately sad. I despised myself and the life I was living. I was trapped in a false narrative and could see no way out,” he wrote. “Most nights, I cried myself to sleep and […]

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Trump Administration Forces University to Discriminate Against Trans Athletes

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New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce University has agreed to abolish its trans-inclusive policy for athletics, after pressure from the Trump administration and anti-LGBT+ activists. The university agreed to ditch its trans inclusion policy under an agreement on Saturday (October 17) to head off an investigation by the Trump Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which has previously been accused of “extorting” school districts into dropping trans-inclusive policies.× Under the agreement, the university will rescind its policy permitting transgender athletes to compete in the correct gender category, which was in line with national standards set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association […]

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The Harm of Excluding Queer History in Schools

The majority of high school students can rattle off facts about the lives and legacies of figures like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Graham Bell, but can’t do the same for Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, or Leslie Feinberg. This is because in today’s school system, the contributions of key LGBTQ+ civil rights leaders and the movements they lead aren’t taught. This exclusion of queer history, coupled with the leaving out of LGBTQ+ inclusive sex education, affects all students in negative ways.  Being forced to seek information about people like us in the past and different sexual orientations as we figure […]

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The Sad, Closeted Hypocrisy of Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham returned to the national spotlight this week, overseeing the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett. The irony of this appears largely lost on the mainstream media.  Graham, for years and years rumored to be gay, is rushing the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice who will likely rule on challenges to the Obergefell marriage decision that will undoubtedly curtail its scope, if not overturn it entirely, as Justices Alito and Thomas revealed last week as their goal.  The confirmed bachelor’s efforts to keep his sexual orientation a secret suffered a blow this summer, when male escorts and […]

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Soccer Team Walks off Field after Homophobic Slur by Opposing Player

San Diego’s professional soccer team walked off the field during a match that it was winning on Wednesday after an opposing team member allegedly hurled a homophobic slur at an openly gay player. The San Diego Loyal SC said a member of Phoenix Rising “used a homophobic slur directed at Collin Martin.” “In response we have decided to walk off the pitch in protest,” the team wrote on Twitter. Martin is openly gay and came out in 2018. At the time he was said to be the only out gay man in any major professional sport in the U.S. San Diego was winning the match 3-1 when it […]

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Key Rights at Stake in US Supreme Court Pick

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020 leaves a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court and enormous uncertainty over the court’s future role in the protection of fundamental human rights. A nominee for Justice Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court should be evaluated in terms of their likely impact on access to justice for critical human rights guarantees, including the rights to life, due process, free expression, privacy, health, freedom from arbitrary detention, and freedom from discrimination. The following areas of Supreme Court decision-making–voting rights, the right to health, the right to reproductive freedom, and […]

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Federal Funding Threatened over Transgender Athlete Policy

The U.S. Department of Education is threatening to withhold some federal funding from Connecticut school districts if they follow a state policy that allows transgender girls to compete as girls in high school sports. In response to a complaint filed last year by several cisgender female track athletes who argued that two transgender female runners had an unfair physical advantage, the federal agency’s office for civil rights determined in May that Connecticut’s policy violates the civil rights of athletes who are not transgender. School districts including New Haven, as well as the Capitol Region Education Council, were asked around the […]

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