Gay and Transgender Vets, chain themselves to White House fence demanding repeal of “Don’t Ask…Don’t Tell”

Things are heating up at the White House as opponents of the long standing “Dont Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (inacted by former president Clinton) have grown tired of waiting for President Obama to make good on his promises to the GLBT community.

6 gay and transsexual veterans have decided to voice there opposition by chaining themselves to a White House fence.

I just hope their all wearing diapers or this thing could get real ugly….if you know what I mean.

WASHINGTON – Moments ago, Lt. Dan Choi along with five other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) discharged veterans — Capt. Jim Pietrangelo II, Petty Officer Larry Whitt, Petty Officer Autumn Sandeen, Cadet Mara Boyd, and Airman Victor Price — handcuffed themselves to the White House gates to demand that President Obama keep his promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this year.  The vets are concerned about mounting signs that the President is wavering on his promise to push for repeal this year.

Today’s action comes one month after Choi and Pietrangelo were arrested for a similar DADT protest at the White House in which they handcuffed themselves to the gates for a period of an hour, while hundreds of protesters looked on.  The new LGBT activist group, GetEQUAL, coordinated both today’s action, and last month’s civil disobedience.

“We are handcuffing ourselves to the White House gates once again to demand that President Obama show leadership on repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’  If the President were serious about keeping his promise to repeal this year, he would put the repeal language in his Defense Authorization budget,” said Choi.  “The President gave us an order at the Human Rights Campaign dinner to keep pressure on him and we will continue to return to the White House, in larger numbers, until the President keeps his promise to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ this year.”

Amid growing signs that the White House is wavering on its commitment to repeal DADT this year, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) called on the President last month to publicly state his desire to repeal DADT this year.  President Obama has refused to respond, prompting Frank to say last week that he is “disappointed” and “frustrated” with the Obama administration’s silence on DADT. “At this point the President’s refusal to call for repeal this year is a problem,” Frank added, saying that the President’s silence is now costing us votes in the Congress.

Transsexual murderer, suing the state to pay for sex-change

The unmitigated gall of some people. This case is one of those cases that really makes me a ambivalent. While I beleieve that certain accommodations should be made for gender variant individuals….you have to keep in mind that you are a ward of the state and the whole purpose of prison is to strip you of your rights.

So for a transsexual to go to jail (for murder) and then decide that she is ready to transition, seems a little opportunistic to me. At the most….she should be allowed to have hormone therapy and even that is being generous, considering the nature of her crime.

No to mention..,what good is the sex change going to do you you, if you are incarcerated for the rest of your life? To me this case only hurts those transgender individuals who are really in dire need of state/government assistance.

A cross-dressing Massachusetts inmate who murdered his wife and has spent the last decade suing the Department of Correction for access to a sex change operation had a taxpayer funded mammogram this week, Fox 25 has learned.

Robert Kosilek – who sued for the right to change his name to Michelle in 1993, the year that he began his expensive court battle to force taxpayers to foot the bill for a sex change operation – has been receiving hormone injections and electrolysis hair removal as an inmate at MCI-Norfolk.

Those hormone treatments helped Kosilek develop breasts and the con has been wearing a bra in the all-male Massachusetts prison, DOC officials said.

On April 13, Kosilek, 59, was transported from the prison to the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston for an appointment in the radiology department. There he was given a routine mammogram before he was returned to the prison at noon, according to transportation documents obtained by Fox 25.

DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin would not comment on Kosilek citing CORI restrictions. But she did release a statement saying:

Read the rest and more video after the jump!

Obama takes a nother step to help equalize the GLBT community

President Obama has been often criticized for not keeping his campaign promises to the GLBT community but as I have often said in my defense of him: Give him some time!

It appears that the patience is paying off and Obama is not making good on some of those promises and bringing the GLBT community another step closer to equality. While this step is far from what many would have hoped for..I firm;y believe it to be a step in the right direction and one of many that will be made by Obama!

President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.

The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation. The memo is scheduled to be made public Friday morning, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the White House decision. An official said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding.

The decision injects the president squarely into the debate over gay marriage by attempting to end the common practice by many hospitals of insisting that only family members by blood or marriage be allowed to visit patients. Gay activists have argued for years that recognizing gay marriages would ease the emotional pain associated with not being able to visit their partners during a health crisis.

By contrast, opponents of gay marriage have said the visitation issue is a red herring, and have argued that advocates want to provide special rights for gays and lesbians that others do not have.

Real Sports chronicles the lives of Transsexual Sports writer

I don’t know how I missed this one but I found it very interesting and informative.

Hopefully you will too.

See part 2 after the jump!

Transgender woman found deceased and nude In New York

Sad news as a TG woman was found slain in her NYC apt. One can only speculate if there was some sort of sexual assault as she was found lying naked.

A transgender woman was found dead in her ransacked Queens apartment on Tuesday, her naked body sprawled across the bed, police said.

Edelbuerto Gonzalez-Andujar, 29, who lived as a woman and went by the name Amanda, had not been heard from since Friday.

Her friends got her landlord to let them into her Glendale apartment around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

“We found her on her bed. She was naked,” said Barbara Vega, 35, of Bushwick, Brooklyn. “Everything in the apartment was destroyed. All her Marilyn Monroe pictures were destroyed.”

Police said the medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Vega, who believes Gonzalez-Andujar was slain, said she had tried in vain to reach her friend since spending time with her on Friday.

“She never had any problems with anybody. She was full of life,” she said. “We need to know who did this to her.”

Ticked Off Trannies With Knives 2.0

Looks like the director of the movie is having a change of heart and not a moment to soon (if you ask me).

I am happy to see that the director understands the power of imagery and is willing to make a compromise.

I’m still not sure I want to see the film.

The director of “Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives,” a movie planned for the Tribeca Film Festival that has set off a war of words before being screened there, said he would amend its trailer so it would not refer to real-life victims of violence. In an e-mail message, Israel Luna, who wrote and directed the film, said he was inspired to create the movie “in part by the hate crimes against the trans community.” He said he included references in his trailer to Angie Zapata, a transgender woman who was beaten to death in Colorado in 2008, and to Jorge Mercado, a gay teenager who was murdered in Puerto Rico in 2009, “to give a disturbing reality to my film about transgender violence.” “After listening to some of the voices in the trans community,” Mr. Luna said, “I’ve decided to remove those references from the trailer.” A listing for the movie at tribecafilm.com had drawn angry comments, and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation had sought the movie’s removal from the festival, saying, “The film, its title and its marketing misrepresent the lives of transgender women and use grotesque, exploitative depictions of violence against transgender women.”

Episode #3 of Transform Me.

I was really happy when I intitially heard that there was going to be a show on VH-1 that centered around an all transsexual cast but after watching a few episode…I am not really feeling it.

I will tell you why: I feel like this show is essentially Queer Eye for The Straight Guy in drag. The ladies behave less like ladies at times and more like butch queens in drag. I realize that its intended to be campy and funny but why do transsexuals essentially behave live gay men or drag queens?

Isn’t the point of being transsexual to be womanly? I still respect the girls for what they’ve accomplished and I really want to see the show do well in spite of my issues with it. I

I realize a lot of the vernacular they use is part of the GLBT culture but I also believe there is a time and a place for everything and this isn’t the time no the place.

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Transgender Parents teaching lessons to their hetero contemporaries

In our ever evolving society we are going to see the term “family” redefined as more families come out of the closet. If you don’t watch Oprah yu are probably unaware that there are many families out there, where one parent is gender variant.

Those who go against the grain are often the target of much berating and ridicule. In order to be gender variant a thick skin is a must and the same can be said for being a parent.

Let me share with you a real-life story involving a transgendered parent. A few years after Michael B. married his wife Barbara in the 1970s, he told her that he preferred wearing women’s clothing and that he felt more comfortable thinking of himself as a woman.

The marriage was a rocky one, but it lasted for almost twenty more years. In 1998, the couple divorced and a year later Michael had gender reassignment surgery and changed her name to Monica. After that, Barbara went to court in their home state of Kentucky and successfully got an order prohibiting Monica from contacting any of their four children because she was now living as a woman.

But things soon got even worse for Monica. Barbara eventually remarried and she and her new husband petitioned the court to terminate all of Monica’s parental rights so that the new husband could adopt the one child out of the four who was still then a minor.

The Kentucky trial court granted the petition after concluding that Monica becoming a woman meant that she had neglected her child and caused her grave emotional harm, necessitating the termination of her parental rights. That ruling was upheld by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 2007.

Monica B.’s case is an example of the kind of pervasive discrimination faced by transgendered parents. It also tells us something important about what it means to be a parent in our society.

For many years now, gay and lesbian parents have had to contend with the argument that depriving a child of a mother (in the case of gay male parents) or of a father (in the case of lesbian parents) harms children. This argument is at its core grounded in the notion that there is something special or unique about the supposed different nurturing styles of fathers and mothers. In response, advocates for gay and lesbian parents have argued that gender in parenting is largely irrelevant because what should matter is not a parent’s gender but instead whether and how the parent loves and cares for the child.

But to some extent, the “gender in parenting” argument in the context of gay and lesbian parents takes place at an abstract level. As a result, in lesbian and gay parenting cases, we tend to ask questions such as whether mothers in general care for children in ways that are different, if not necessarily better, than fathers in general do.

Judge rules in favor of lesbian teen

Last night I watched “Bruno” for the 1st time and while Bruno is intended to be a comedy it really did an excellent job at helping to illustrate the homophobic climate that permeates America. In the video you are about to see below a high school students memories are tarnished forever because she is openly lesbian and wanted to take her female companion to the prom.

In stead of having the problem and allowing a lesbian student to take part the school canceled the prom for everyone. The good news is a federal judge ruled that the openly lesbian teens civil rights were violated and hopefully that will help to pave the way for some sort of settlement and more importantly help to ease the struggles for the GLBT students that will come after her.

Gay brawl at Chicago welfare office

Folks in a Chicago area Aid Office were treated to a show while on line to receive their benefits. Two gay boys who apparently decided to bring the ballroom to the aid office. Then out of nowhere….one of them begins a full on vogue performance. Why? Is beyond me.

I just know a good gag when I see one honey and this is one of legendary proportions. most people in the welfare office are usually trying the damndest to avoid being seen but not Ms. Thing! She was on 10…honey.

In the end the gag is on her as she was escorted away by security….without her E.B.T.

My guess is one of them was probably disgruntled about losing femme-queen realness and couldn’t take it!