Americans mark Valentine’s Day, an annual commemoration of love and affection, by showering our sweetie(s) with gifts and taking them out for a night on the town. But there’s no better way to show you care than practicing safer sex. Feb. 14 isn’t just Valentine’s Day, it’s also National Condom Day. Learn how to keep it safe all year by visiting the sexual health resource page. Oh, and have fun celebrating.
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Gossip frontwoman Beth Ditto is teaming up with MAC for a limited edition cosmetics line, and I’m kind of having a femme-gasm.
I don’t normally get so excited about celebrities, corporations and capitalism, but this is a partnership I can get behind. MAC cosmetics are not tested on animals, many of the products are vegan, and the company often hires non-normative spokesmodels and employees, like Ditto. She is an unapologetic fat, queer, feminist who lets her inner drag queen shine—someone not considered beautiful to most of American society, someone like me—yet, MAC made her the face of her own high-end cosmetics line. That’s usually reserved for straight, white, thin, young, stereotypically attractive models and celebrities. (Although, CoverGirl did deviate from its usual spokesmodels with Ellen DeGeneres and Queen Latifa.)
I’m bummed that Ditto isn’t working with MAC’s Viva Glam campaign because every cent of the selling price of products in the Viva Glam line goes to the MAC AIDS Fund. Previous Viva Glam spokesmodels include queer and allied songstresses Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper, as well as professional drag aficionado RuPaul.
Black* members of the LGBT community experience stark social, economic and health disparities compared to the general population and their straight black and white LGBT counterparts, according to a Center for American Progress report.
CAP recommends overcoming these issues with a policy agenda that “seeks to understand and tackle the structural barriers—discriminatory systems, conditions and institutions around socioeconomic status, race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity—that perpetuate negative economic, health, and other life outcomes among this population.” The report also suggests gay policy priorities, like marriage equality, underserve many populations within the LGBT community.
“Despite significant gains in securing basic rights for LGBT Americans over the past decade, the quality of life for black gay and transgender Americans has remained virtually unchanged,” Aisha Moodie-Mills, CAP advisor on LGBT policy and racial justice, wrote in a statement. “Marriage equality is vital to overall progress, but marriage alone is not a silver bullet to reduce the disparities black gay and transgender populations face.”
In the report, CAP made the following recommendations to overcome issues faced by the people of color in the LGBT community:
CAP recommendations for addressing economic insecurity
CAP recommendations for addressing low educational attainment
CAP recommendations for addressing health and wellness disparities
But the data on race and the LGBT community is limited, as few demographic surveys ask respondents their sexual orientation and gender identity. And without solid data, creating credible, persuasive policies is difficult. In response, CAP launched the Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality initiative, which makes policy recommendations to eliminate disparities faced by gay and transgender people of color.
My guess is, if surveys also enumerated other identities, like ability and citizenship status, researchers would find even greater social, economic, and health disparities for LGBT people of color who fall into those oppressed identities as well.
Read the entire report on CAP’s website.
*Black is the racial category used in the CAP report.
After years of litigation in the Roe v. Wade case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Roe, legalizing abortion 39 years ago today.
The court extended the right to privacy clause in the 14th Amendment to a person’s choice to have an abortion; however, that right must be balanced with the state’s interest to protect prenatal life and the mother’s health.
A person may chose to have an abortion until the fetus is viable or “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid,” according to the Roe v. Wade ruling. Medically, this is usually at about seven months or 28 weeks, but very few doctors perform abortions on people who are past the first trimester.
Before abortion was legalized in the United States, thousands of women died from complications resulting from botched back alley abortions. Currently, 60,000 to 80,000 people worldwide die each year from unsafe abortions, and 5 million more suffer permanent or temporary injury.
Several states—Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota—enacted trigger laws to automatically criminalize abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Other states did not repeal pre-1973 laws criminalizing abortion, which could be enforced if the decision is overturned.
California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada and Washington have statutes legalizing abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Many states skirt the ruling by imposing limitations on access to abortions, such as requiring an ultrasound of the fetus or parental permission before performing the procedure for minors. 2011 was a banner year for these laws: State legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year’s end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states.
Check out the resources below for more information:
In December I read some of my poetry and short stories at All The Writers I Know, a Chicago queer literary showcase hosted by Southside Hub of Production. I shared my work alongside some other very talented queers—including Kelsey Schultz, Dee Michel, Patrick Gill, Rosy Phinick and Mar Curran.
Because it was close to the holidays, the theme for the night was family: blood and chosen. I read pieces on femme visibility, alcoholism, poverty, fighting and friends. Other writers covered coming out, kooky kin, redefining family, body positivity, and name and pronoun preference.
I was all femmed out while sharing poems and short stories about family at All The Writers I Know.
All The Writers I Know was also featured in The Reader and Redeye. Not too shabby, considering this was the second installment of the series.
The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography recorded the reading as a podcast. Listen below, on iTunes or CCLAP’s website. I start at the 18:45 mark, but the entire show is worth checking out.
More photos from All The Writers I Know are on Stuff Queer People Need To Know’s Facebook page.
Over 12,000 sites across the web—Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, most notably—are protesting the House Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate counterpart Protect IP Act by going black today.
Described as “the end of the internet as we know it,” by California Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren, SOPA and PIPA would make it easier for copyright holders to prosecute piracy. Corporations could obtain a court order to take down any website considered to be infringing their copyrights, and internet providers could be required to monitor customers’ traffic.
That means SOPA and PIPA could be used to censor any dissenting website, even if it only indirectly facilitates copyright infringement by linking to a site hosting pirated media. Popular search engines and social media websites could easily be shutdown. Watch the video below for a comprehensive and easy to understand explanation of SOPA and PIPA:
The House cancelled a vote on SOPA scheduled for late January 2012, pulling the bill from the floor, but it can still easily return later. The White House has come out against SOPA and PIPA, but Obama still seeks anti-piracy legislation that more people can agree on. And PIPA is still alive and well in the Senate.
The internet is an essential means of communication and expression across the world, albeit vastly unregulated. But limiting free speech and monitoring Americans online activity is dangerous—these bills could snowball to further online censorship. SOPA and PIPA put all websites, including this one, at risk. The bills are written vaguely, so even a rogue spam comment linking to pirated material could be grounds to shut a website down.
Tell your members of Congress censoring the internet is not acceptable. Quickly email your Senator about this issue at AmericanCensorship.org.
For more on how SOPA and PIPA could impact you, read FAQs on C|NET and check out this handy infographic.
UPDATE: Lawmakers indefinitely postponed votes on SOPA and PIPA, in light of the protests.
