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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=inDepthNews&storyID=2006-10-03T120245Z_01_L07871288_RTRUKOC_0_US-TURKEY-TRANSSEXUALS.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-inDepthNews-3
Turkey's transsexuals face increasing violence
By Selcuk Gokoluk
ISTANBUL, OCTOBER 3 (Reuters) -- Belgin still vividly remembers the night,more than a quarter of a centuryago, when police herded her and dozens ofother transsexuals andtransvestites on to a train as part of a campaign to clean up Istanbul.
"We did not know where the train was taking us. The police beat us andlocked us up in the wagons. They gave us no water or food," she said,evoking scenes reminiscent of World War Two.
The roundup took place just before the 1980 military coup in Turkey whichled to the suspension of democracy and the jailing of hundreds ofthousands of people for their political views. Some were executed. Manypeople fled abroad.
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Top sex-change doctor faces ban
Dr Russell Reid "unjustly accused"
Dr Heather Peto of Cambridge University and the LGBT human rightsgroup OutRage! argues that charges of professional misconduct againstone of the world's leading gender identity specialists are not in theinterests of transgender people and bring shame to the medical and psychiatric professions.
London - 5 October 2006
Dr Heather Peto writes:
The General Medical Council this week began to hear allegations of professional misconduct against Dr Russell Reid, aninternationally-renowned consultant psychiatrist specialising intransgender and gender reassignment issues, which are often referredto medically as gender dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder (GID).He has been a prominent member of the Royal College of Psychiatrist'scommittee on gender identity issues.
The allegations are that between 1984 and 2003 Dr Reid prescribedsex-change treatment for some transgender patients too quickly andwithout a sufficient cooling off period to allow patients to changetheir minds.
It is claimed that he failed to adhere to the guidelines advised bythe US-based Harry Benjamin International Gender DysphoriaAssociation. Although not legally binding, these guidelines about howsoon to start hormone treatment and how soon to undertake surgery arefollowed by many specialists in gender dysphoria.
Please contact us at rays.list@comcast.net if you would like the complete article.
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Slovenia conducts first gay civil wedding
Oct. 5, 2006 at 8:33AM
United press International
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20061005-075126-4982r.htm
Two men became Slovenia's first same-sex couple married in a civil ceremony,a rite they described as humiliating and awful.
Mitja Blazic and Niki Kern, residents of Ljubljana, legalized theirpartnership under a law passed in July that permits same-sex marriages,Serbia's FoNet news agency reported Thursday.
The two were married by a Ljubljana municipal registration official in astate office. No friends or relatives were allowed to attend.
Blazic criticized the law allowing same-sex marriages as discriminatory,when compared with heterosexual marriages.
He said the ceremony had no solemn atmosphere and added, "It looked morelike a car registration, not a wedding ceremony," FoNet said.
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http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05brooks.html?pagewanted=print
The New York Times
October 5, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
A Tear in Our Fabric
By DAVID BROOKS
This is a tale of two predators. The first is a congressman who befriended teenage pages. He sent them cajoling instant messages asking them to describe their sexual habits, so he could get his jollies.
The second is a secretary, who invited a 13-year-old girl from her neighborhood into her car and kissed her. Then she invited the girl up to her apartment, gave her some vodka, took off her underwear and gave her a satin teddy to wear.
Then she had sex with the girl, which was interrupted when the girl's mother called. Then she made the girl masturbate in front of her and taught her some new techniques.
The first predator, of course, is Mark Foley, the Florida congressman. The second predator is a character in Eve Ensler's play, "The Vagina Monologues."
Foley is now universally reviled. But the Ensler play, which depicts the secretary's affair with the 13-year-old as a glorious awakening, is revered. In the original version of the play, the under-age girl declares, "I say, if it was a rape, it was a good rape, then, a rape that turned my [vagina] into a kind of heaven." When I saw Ensler perform the play several years ago in New York, everyone roared in approval. Ensler has since changed the girl's age to 16 - the age of Foley's pages - and audiences still embrace the play and that scene at colleges and in theaters around the world.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/la-na-fordham5oct05,0,4558055.story
Onetime Loyal Aide Now Stands to Undermine GOPFormer staffer Kirk Fordham says he'll tell all to the FBI in the Foleycase, poising him to take on the leadership he once served.
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger
Times Staff Writers
October 5, 2006
WASHINGTON - For 20 years, Kirk Fordham was a loyal staffer and strategist - rising from his early days as a Capitol Hill intern to the coveted post ofchief of staff to a senior congressman.
But Wednesday, amid a scandal that has rattled Capitol Hill and ended thepolitical career of Fordham's longtime boss, former Rep. Mark Foley(R-Fla.), the 39-year-old aide emerged as a central player in a saga thatcould bring down the same House GOP leadership that he worked so tirelesslyto serve.
No longer a behind-the-scenes operator, Fordham resigned his post as chiefof staff to Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the NationalRepublican Congressional Committee, and declared his intention to tell allwhen the FBI calls.
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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/05/the_gay_problem_in_the_gop/
The Boston Globe
DAVID LINK
The gay problem in the GOP
By David Link | October 5, 2006
THE TRAGIC OPERA of former congressman Mark Foley is the revenge of don't ask, don't tell.
Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned Friday after e-mails and instant messages between him and several teenage congressional pages surfaced. The Republican leadership knew that at least one page had gotten e-mails where Foley admired the body of one of the page's friends, and asked the page for a picture of himself, e-mails the page naturally found sick and a bit creepy.
Republican leaders responded to the potential political problem by telling Foley to knock it off. With respect to the larger issue, though, there was no asking or telling. The boy's own revulsion at the obviously inappropriate attention was ignored, not only by Foley's partisan fellows, but by some news outlets that also had seen the e-mails.
If this has a familiar ring, look in the Catholic Church for the bell. Republican leadership was acting like the Catholic hierarchy, which played shell games with men accused of sexually abusing children. And there's a good reason for the similarity. The inability to deal straightforwardly with gay people leads to other kinds of truth-avoidance when things go south. But that's what comes from not wanting to know something, and going out of your way to remain ignorant.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail848oct05,0,6109008.story
Being true to self
Jim Feldscher
Fort Lauderdale
October 5, 2006
This story is a tragedy for many people: the congressman himself, hisfamily, the voters, and certainly the pages who were involved by no choiceof their own.
I have read the stories down through the years that the congressman was gay.I also read all his statements, not quite of denial, but stating it was none of our business.
When reflecting on his decision to come out as a gay man, actor Ian McKellen stated, "You can't lie about something so central to yourself withoutharming yourself." (Newsweek, Aug. 15, 2005). I wonder how much CongressmanFoley harmed himself by years of denial and deception. As we observe ComingOut Month, maybe the congressman can teach us once again how important isthe old quotation, "To thine own self be true."
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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Pride At Work Denounces the NLRB for Stripping Union Organizing Rights
Pride At Work, AFL-CIO
October 4, 2006: Pride At Work, AFL-CIO condemns the National LaborRelations Board's (NLRB) decision, released yesterday, to slash long-timefederal labor laws protecting workers' freedom to form unions and openingthe door for employers to classify millions of workers as supervisors. Underfederal labor law, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions.
"Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender workers want to form unions toimprove the quality of life for their families, protect their rights, andhave a voice at work. This ruling disconnects a vital and necessary meansto economic justice for many LGBT working families," said Nancy Wolhforth,Pride At Work Co-President.
The NLRB ruling was on a case involving nurses, but would pave the way foremployers to classify anyone who assigns work, directs another, or usesindependent judgment as a supervisor, which would mean they are ineligibleto form a union.
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http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Florida/floSTAT01POL100506.htm
October 05, 2006
Debate alters after Foley acknowledges being gay
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- By finally acknowledging after years of evasion that he is gay,Mark Foley from Florida, has altered the debateamong conservatives and gays over his overtures to male pages in Congress.
Some conservatives say House Republican leaders knew previously of Foley'ssexual orientation and were too lax in investigating his actions for fear ofseeming bigoted. Some gays blame Foley's personal problems on being so longin the closet while representing a party hostile to many gay-rights causes.
"This is the problem with the closet: it's a terrible place to be, and it'sgot to be worse if you're a Republican," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.,who in 1987 became the first member of Congress to voluntarily make hishomosexuality public.
As far back as 1996, two years after his election to Congress from a southFlorida district, Foley was "outed" by a gay newspaper.
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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Transgenderzone.com Newsletter Updates - Final Report - Social exclusion of young transgender (TILBG) people in Europe
Read HTML version online: http://archives.zinester.com/55480/108976.html
Social exclusion of young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Europe.
Young transgender people across Europe face discrimination and exclusion intheir everyday life. They experience estrangement from family, bullying andmarginalisation at school, which can lead to such problems asunderachievement and school drop-out, low self-esteem and mental ill-health.These in turn have a negative impact on the capacity of young tpeople tomanage the transition from school to work and to become confident andindependent adults who can contribute to society.
This joint report by IGLYO and ILGA-Europe is a response to the need tobring attention to the social exclusion of young transgender people inEurope and to put the issue on the agenda of national and Europeanpolicy-makers.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100401343_pf.html
Name Change Sought at College Building
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 4, 2006; 4:53 PM
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Students at the University of Missouri-Columbia havelaunched a campaign to rename the student union building because it ischristened in honor of a former dean who worked to purge the campus of gaystudents and professors more than a half-century ago.
Erin Kennedy and two other students spent the summer poring over Thomas A. Brady's personal papers in the university archives and said the documentsshow that Brady regularly corresponded with the university president overways "to establish machinery for identification and apprehension" ofhomosexuals.
The student union was built and named Brady Commons in 1966, two years afterBrady's death. Brady was also a history professor and a university vicepresident.
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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Harvard Civil Rights Project Amicus Brief (Urgent Reply Needed)
This message was originally submitted by Wendy Smooth, smooth.1@OSU.EDU to
the RACE-POL list at LISTSERV.ILSTU.EDU.
Colleagues,
The Harvard Civil Rights Project has drafted a social science statement,which will be appended to an amicus brief for the cases being argued beforethe U.S. Supreme Court this fall regarding the future of voluntary schooldesegregation policies. They are asking that social scientists andhistorians either at the professor, or researcher level (not students)sign-on, and they will then file the brief on behalf of all who agree tobecome signatories. Could you please help us in circulating this to yourrespective departments, and anyone else you think might be relevant inacademia. Also if there are organizations or other listservs you coulddistribute this through, that would be great. The deadline is rather tightthey need all signatures of support by THURSDAY, OCT 5th (1pm EST)-- thedeadline has been extended, so please adhere to the new OCT 5th date.
Please visit
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/sss/
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/sss/
for more information to learn more and to add yourNews Release
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For Immediate Release
October 4, 2006
Contact: James Dozier
Log Cabin Republicans-Washington, DC Office
(202) 347-5306
jdozier@logcabin.org
Log Cabin Republicans Respond to Shameful Tactics of Anti-Gay Groups
No One Should Use Foley Scandal for Political Gain
(Washington, DC) - "Anti-gay groups should stop using the Mark Foley scandalto push their anti-gay agenda," said Log Cabin Executive Vice PresidentPatrick Sammon. "This is a political scandal and a personal scandal, but itshould not be used to denigrate gay and lesbian Americans. The anti-gaygroups appear more interested in using this situation to score politicalpoints than in figuring out exactly what happened in this terriblesituation."
"Millions of gay and lesbian people go to work, pay taxes, raise families,and make this country a better place to live. Their lives and charactershouldn't be demeaned because of Mark Foley's disgusting behavior or theCongressional leadership's response to it," Sammon said.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Paul Weyrich from the FreeCongress Foundation, "American Values" President Gary Bauer, and PatBuchanan, among others, have been using this situation to push theiranti-gay agenda. Tony Perkins said on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" thatgay men are more likely than heterosexual men to molest young people. Also,Pat Buchanan made an identical claim on the same program. These claims arecategorically false. In fact, in 1998 the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation found that 98 percent of male pedophiles are heterosexual.
"These people should spend more much time holding our elected officialsaccountable for their behavior and less time scapegoating gay Americans,"said Sammon.
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http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061005/APN/610050822&template=printart
Article published Oct 5, 2006
Oct 5, 2006
Q&A about criminal investigations into Foley scandal
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
Federal and state investigations into former Rep. Mark Foley's sexuallyexplicit conversations with young House pages have raised questions aboutwhat laws may have been broken.
Q: With all those Internet conversations and e-mails, doesn't the FBIalready have enough evidence to arrest Foley? Isn't it a crime to use theInternet for sexually explicit conversations with children?
A: It's not a federal crime. Congress tried to outlaw precisely this sort ofbehavior with the Communication Decency Act of 1996. A year later, theSupreme Court declared the law unconstitutional, saying it violated theFirst Amendment's right to free speech. The court in 2003 said a 1998 law torestrict the commercial distribution of material harmful to minors could notbe enforced.
Q: Then why do people get arrested after having sexual conversations withFBI agents posing as kids?
A: Those stings are set up to catch sexual predators who use the Internetand e-mail to stalk children, then set up meetings with their intendedvictims. The FBI does not typically arrest a sexual predator until he triesto meet the child.
Q: Doesn't federal law prohibit the use of the Internet to entice minors toengage in sex?
A: Yes. If Foley encouraged a page to meet him for sex, and the boy was notold enough to consent, then Foley could face charges. Even if the meetingdidn't occur, this law could be used by prosecutors if there was evidencethat Foley attempted to set it up. The instant message transcripts that havebeen made public include limited discussions about possible meetings.
Q: Isn't there a law against using the Internet to send obscene materials to minors?
A: Yes, but veteran investigators say it's unclear whether an electronicconversation - as opposed to a pornographic picture - would qualify. Also,the law applies only to children under 16.
Q: What about state laws?
A: A few states have passed laws criminalizing sexual conversations withminors, but courts have generally overturned them. Florida, where Foleylives, does not have such a law. If Foley had sexual contact with a minor -a suggestion his lawyer has denied - it would be a crime if the child isunder the age of consent. In Florida, the age of consent is 18. InLouisiana, where one of the pages lived, it's 17.
Again, those laws only kick in if there was physical contact. If there
was physical contact, that could also trigger the federal enticing law.
Q: So what is there to investigate?
A: The Justice Department has ordered the House to preserve Foley's officialcomputer files and FBI agents have begun interviewing participants in theHouse page program. If those interviews turn up evidence about a sexualencounter or if Foley's computers contain child pornography or otherevidence, that could lead to criminal charges. Foley's lawyer, David Roth,says there has been no sexual contact with minors and Foley is not apedophile.
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Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
The New Republic
4 Oct 06
http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=w061002&s=arnovitz100306
Mark Foley: Bad for the gays?
Boy Crazy
by Kevin Arnovitz
Only at TNR Online | Post date 10.04.06
Mark Foley's lust for the cute bouncing butt of a former 16-year-old pagebegan on Friday as a salacious boondoggle for both a scandal-obsessed publicand a hungry press corps eager to write the next episode in an intriguingelectoral campaign. By and large, the Wow Factor on Friday night was drivenmore by content than context--and it's no surprise, because the content wasa priceless send-up of yet another pol whose career was ultimately definedby his hypocrisy. Among my small circle of gay friends, Foley's instantmessages were the comedy segment in our Sunday brunch forum. Schadenfreudereigned over egg-white omelets in Silver Lake, the East Village, and AdamsMorgan.
Some of the only voices that spent the weekend connecting Foley's offenses
with his homosexuality
<http://www.cwfa.org/articles/11595/CWA/misc/index.htm>
were fundamentalist Christian outfits like the Concerned Women of America.
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http://www.indynews.4t.com/0320/features6.html
Of Two Minds: Don't Call us MSM's, We're GAY!
By Nate Klarfeld & Grover Lawlis
OfTwoMinds@OurIndy.com
We don't know if you've noticed, but everyone from the Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and many federallyfunded AIDS Service Organizations (ASO's) have recently removed the word"Gay" from their articles, charts and reports and replaced it with the morepolitically correct "MSM" (Men who have sex with Men.) This was done toreflect the growing population of men who do not identify themselves as gaybut still by choice or fleeting profession, have sex with other men.
Since J. L. King's book, On the Down Low, there was a sudden awakening tothe general public that many more men were having sex with other men. Ofcourse this came as no surprise to us in the gay community. Many of us haveheard sex partners, sometimes in the heat of gay sex, tell us they are notgay and we say to ourselves, "If you aren't gay what are you doing with mypenis in your mouth?"
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The current issue of The Independent Gay News is online
http://www.indynews.4t.com/
=
Forwarded from Ken's List <Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu>
To: kenslist@groups.queernet.org
Harvard Civil Rights Project Amicus Brief (Urgent Reply Needed)
This message was originally submitted by Wendy Smooth, smooth.1@OSU.EDU to
the RACE-POL list at LISTSERV.ILSTU.EDU.
Colleagues,
The Harvard Civil Rights Project has drafted a social science statement,
which will be appended to an amicus brief for the cases being argued beforethe U.S. Supreme Court this fall regarding the future of voluntary schooldesegregation policies. They are asking that social scientists andhistorians either at the professor, or researcher level (not students)sign-on, and they will then file the brief on behalf of all who agree tobecome signatories. Could you please help us in circulating this to yourrespective departments, and anyone else you think might be relevant inacademia. Also if there are organizations or other listservs you coulddistribute this through, that would be great. The deadline is rather tightthey need all signatures of support by THURSDAY, OCT 5th (1pm EST)-- the deadline has been extended, so please adhere to the new OCT 5th date.
Please visit
<http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/sss/>http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/sss/
for more information to learn more and to add your signature to the statement.
#####
