The Republican onslaught against LGBTIQ communities in the United States is escalating, reports Barry Sheppard. So far this year, 51 anti LGBTIQ bills have passed in 18 Republican-controlled states.
transgender rights
The following open letter about trans rights was initiated by Community Action for Rainbow Rights and Pride in Protest.
The latest episode of the Green Left Show focuses on trans rights, and features Charlie Murphy and Nova Sobieralski.
Where do we draw the line when deciding who has an “unfair” advantage in elite sports, asks Mary Merkenich?
Opposition to the international swimming federation’s blanket ban on transgender and intersex women participating in elite swimming has been swift. Nova Sobieralski reports.
Transgender rights activists protested outside Randwick Council against its transphobic policy relating to the McIver’s Ladies Baths, writes Rachel Evans and Oscar Bray.
Banned from entering Australia by the federal government, former United States intelligence analyst turned whistleblower Chelsea Manning instead delivered her message of hope to audiences in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane via video link.
The Australian immigration department denied Manning a visa on the basis of failing “the character test”, citing as grounds the time she spent in jail for leaking documents that exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
Last year, a group of studying music at the LGBTI Centre in Bogota decided to organize a rock band unlike any other in Colombia. Members say the band, 250 Milligrams, is the first transgender male rock group in South America.
Bolivia has approved a new law that allows transgender people to change their name, sex and gender on birth certificates and other official records. LGBTI rights activists in Bolivia see the law as a groundbreaking sign of growing tolerance in Latin America.
Forty people began the process to change their personal information on identity documents and bank accounts, and alter their professional titles on the day the law passed.
The recent knifing of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull held a brief glimpse of hope for marriage equality in Australia. Unfortunately, the change of PM did not bring any change of policy, and the Liberal Party’s homophobic agenda has remained the same.
Turnbull professes to personally support marriage equality, but has asked the rainbow community to wait for a plebiscite until after the federal elections. This amounts to a position worse than Abbott who was dragged kicking and screaming to agree to a plebiscite together with the elections.
Feminist author and career academic Germaine Greer has sparked outrage once again following a controversial interview she gave to the BBC on October 24 where she reaffirmed her position that transgender women are not “real” women.
Greer's devolution from an ideological pillar of the 1960's women's liberation movement to a source of loathing for sections of the feminist community needs to be discussed. Her comments provide an important opportunity for putting forward a clear argument against trans-exclusionary feminism.
Rita Hester was found murdered inside her apartment on November 28, 1998. Hester was transgender and also African American, her death highlighting not only the issue of transphobic murder, but also the disproportionate representation of people of colour among its victims.
Her murder is still unsolved but an international day of action known as Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is marked on November 20 each year.
Hester’s murder was preceded and followed by other high profile transphobic murders.