In 2003, the city of El Paso approved an anti-discrimination ordinance that extended protection to gays and lesbians, along with other minorities, in the areas of service and accommodation.

The ordinance stated, "The city of El Paso firmly rejects acts of discrimination, intolerance and bigotry," reported a July 22 article in the El Paso Times.

Now, the El Paso Times reported in the same article, the city council has reaffirmed those principles following an incident in which a security guard allegedly ejected a party of gay customers from a restaurant after one man kissed his boyfriend.

The resolution, which passed without a single dissenting vote on July 21, underscored the city’s values of "acceptance, tolerance and diversity," the article said.

The incident took place June 29 at a restaurant called Chico’s Tacos, the article recalled, with the security guards calling for the police. See El Paso Stands up for GLBT Equality After Gay Kiss Incident EDGE Boston

Equality California, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition, and the Liberty Hill Foundation will host Massachusetts' first African-American Governor, Deval Patrick, for a discussion on his efforts to secure the right to marry for same-sex couples in his state. Previously the Assistant Attorney General under the Clinton Administration and counsel for NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Governor Patrick will join California lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community leaders and allies in reflecting on his work to protect the right for same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts. His leadership allowed the state to avert a referendum campaign similar to the Proposition 8 ballot initiative.

A champion for civil rights and LGBT justice issues, Governor Deval Patrick will offer his unique and personal perspective on the subject. In 2008, Katherine Patrick, then 18, publically announced she was a lesbian with her father, Governor Patrick, by her side. The next weekend, the Governor along with his wife and daughter walked together in the Boston LGBT Pride March. The discussion is set for Sunday afrernoon in LA.

Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender-rights advocacy organization in California. In the past decade, EQCA has strategically movedCalifornia from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil-rights protections in the nation. EQCA has passed over 50 pieces of legislation and continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, public education and community empowerment. www.eqca.org

Two Utah women have embarked on a cross country walk to raise awareness of homeless youth who are gay, lesbian or transgender.

Chloe Noble and Jill Hardman began their journey in May from Seattle. Bound for Washington, D.C., the pair are making stops in various cities to speak at community centers and rallies about the struggles of homeless youth, including finding safe sleeping spots, police harassment, sexual predators and exposure to drugs and alcohol. The 3,000-plus mile trip is expected to take six months.

Noble, Hardman and Nicole Tomlin are currently walking between Portland and San Francisco.

See Pride walk raises awareness of homeless LGBT youth Salt Lake Tribune -

bjected to a "brutal" verbal attack from several other teens while at a 4-H camp, according to the teen’s mother.

A WSAZ News Channel 3 story posted on July 17 said that, according to mother Valera White, her teenaged son was so shocked and distressed by the taunts that other camp participants hurled at him that, "he could barely speak."

Indeed, the teen had to write out details of the incident in order to communicate what happened.

The article said that because West Virginia does not offer any anti-discrimination protections for GLBTs, the police could not pursue the matter.

White said that two camp counselors were on the scene during the verbal attack; a 4H camp spokesperson verified that counselors were there, but would not say whether they would face disciplinary action, the article reported.

The spokesperson added that 4H makes every effort to ensure that attendees at their camps will be safe.
See Gay W. Virginia Teen Subjected to Harassment at 4-H Camp EDGE Boston

12:00-1:00 pm Eastern: Linda Goldman spent two decades as a counselor in the Baltimore County school system and heard many stories of boys and girls, struggling with their sexuality and being bullied for being gay. She's written a guidebook for parents, teachers and school administrators on the challenges facing gay teens.

1:00-2:00 pm: For seventeen years, Libby Cataldi was head of the Calverton School in southern Maryland. While she was guiding and disciplining other parents' children, her own son was becoming a drug addict. She chronicles her experiences in a candid memoir, Stay Close: A Mother's Story of Her Son's Addiction.

See Growing up gay Baltimore Sun

They may not have meant to, but some college and university professors have accidentally "outed" transgender students during roll call.

However, starting this semester, the University of Massachusetts is taking steps to protect the gender identities of its students with some technological tweaking that has been three years in the works.

In the fall, professors and administrators will receive class rosters and other documents with transgender students' chosen names as well as their legal ones in a move intended to prevent professors from calling students by unintentionally gender-revealing names.

Safe environment

It may seem like a small step, but Brett-Genny Janiczek Beemyn, director of the UMass Stonewall Center, an advocacy and support group for LGBT students and causes, said the name initiative is already being sought by other colleges eager to provide a safe environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

"If you have the name 'Sue,' but you look like a guy, it's really going to cause problems for that person," said Janiczek Beemyn. "The concern was for students being outed to other people. I think you're going to start seeing more schools doing this."

UMass is adding the name option along with gender-neutral housing to its accommodations for LGBT students this academic year. While UMass has one of the country's oldest LGBT "theme" residential floors, 2009-2010 will mark the first year students of different sexes can share a room on that floor.

"UMass Amherst has been in the forefront when it has come to its LGBT theme housing options," said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, an online resource for LGBT people searching for a higher education. The site ranks UMass Amherst as one of the top 50 most gay-friendly campuses in the country.

"More and more campuses are recognizing the value in being seen as a gay-friendly and LGBT supportive campus," he said. "Since UMass implemented its theme floor we have seen nearly 100 colleges do similar inclusive housing options over the last decade."

Janiczek Beemyn has been working with UMass administrators to change the university's name policy for three years.

Convincing the university to institute a new naming policy wasn't the issue, Janiczek Beemyn said, it was getting over the technological hurdle of tweaking the school's software system, PeopleSoft, to incorporate the alternate name that took time.

"It didn't have an easy way to accommodate giving people a different way to identify," Janiczek Beemyn said.

Preferred names will appear on students' main Student Center page on SPIRE and on class rosters, among other informal documents. Legal names will appear on items such as financial aid and health insurance papers.

Since news of the preferred name capability was posted on the Stonewall Centers' Web page, Janiczek Beemyn has been getting calls from schools interested in the technology to adopt the policy.

"A lot of schools have contacted me about how we were able to do it from a technical standpoint," Janiczek Beemyn said. "They want to share the process."

The UMass software breakthrough is coming roughly at the same time the University of Vermont figured out how to do the same with their system, Banner, another widespread college administration program.

"When I was in class, the professors would look down the roster and be calling roll and say the wrong name and then correct themselves in front of the whole class," Davin Sokup, a transgender University of Vermont student, told the university communication department.

"I'm out on campus, but it's still very uncomfortable to walk around the next day and wonder who's seeing me and telling their friend, Oh, like, that's the kid."

Finding ways to accommodate transgender students has been a growing field on college campuses, Janiczek Beemyn said, as more students are identifying as transgender.

Concrete statistics on the transgender population are not readily available.

Surveys predict a population range of anywhere from 1 transgender person per 100,000 people to 1 in 500, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington D.C. based LGBT rights group.

"Increasingly, people are identifying openly as transgender," Janiczek Beemyn said. "It's more of an option now."

See umass embraces gender neutrality Amherst Bulletin

The reinvention of the Oscar-winning film Fame will also include a talented gay teen in its cast, except this version drops the tortured gay teen storyline.

Fame follows a group of talented students at the New York City High School of Performing Arts. They are dancers, singers, actors and artists looking for their big break. Among the students craving the spotlight is the character of Kevin, played by Paul McGill, who is studying to be a dancer and is gay.

Ever since the movie's announcement, gay entertainment blogs have been asking if the character of Kevin was destined to rehash the tortured gay teen storyline of Montgomery, played by Paul McCrane in the original film. Gay entertainment site AfterElton.com might have been the first to raise the subject way back in October.

An unnamed source close to the production tells On Top Magazine that Kevin is very different from Montgomery.

“[Kevin] is not tortured at all,” our source says, “the fact that he is gay is not discussed in the film.”

See Gay Entertainment Report: 'Fame' Reboot Drops Tortured Gay Teen On Top Magazine

Yale has been widely known as the Gay Ivy since at least 1987, when Julie V. Iovine '77 declared in the Wall Street Journal, "Suddenly Yale is a gay school." She didn't offer serious evidence, but she had evidently hit on something true, because the concept stuck. Today, Yale's reputation as the Gay Ivy is familiar to most students and younger alumni -- it's even included in Yale's entry on Wikipedia, that useful guide to the common wisdom.

Yale was one of the last Ivies to create an office of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) resources.

What does "the Gay Ivy" mean? It's not that Yale is a minority-heterosexual school. You have only to visit campus in the springtime to see boy-girl romance blooming all over, ubiquitous as ever.

Yale probably does, however, have a higher proportion of gay students than other Ivies; there are no statistics, but many gay Yale students think it's true. And if you walk around campus for a while on your visit, you may see a gay couple holding hands. For the central point of the Gay Ivy tag is that Yale is a gay-friendly school. The campus is unusually welcoming to gay and lesbian students and has an active, multifaceted gay social scene.

How did this happen? Not through a strategic plan. Yale was one of the last Ivies to create an office of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) resources. The current administration is gay-friendly, but Yale administrators historically have not sought to push the envelope on these issues.

Nor was Yale's reputation created through alumni activism. Yale GALA (Gay and Lesbian Alumni) just held its first reunion, and the prominent gay alumni who spoke included Bruce Cohen '83, producer of Milk, and Larry Kramer '57, author of The Normal Heart. Margaret Marshall '76JD, who wrote the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, is also an alum. But Yale has many alumni who oppose pro-gay policies, such as Heather Mac Donald '78, who criticized Yale in the Weekly Standard for starting the LGBTQ resources office; Maggie Gallagher '82, president of the National Organization for Marriage; and the Right Reverend John Guernsey '75, who joined his flock with the Anglican Church of Uganda after the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop.

Rather, it was gay students themselves who changed Yale. For most of the twentieth century, Yale was a terrible place to be gay. Many alumni who attended the GALA reunion had been so unhappy as students that they'd never before returned to campus. In the following essay, adapted from his keynote at the GALA reunion, Yale historian George Chauncey '77, '89PhD, sketches that early history of alienation and traces how decades of effort by Yale's gay students drove a cultural shift. Then four personal memoirs show us the shift as it played out in the lives of four Yale alumni, from the classes of 1977 through 2009.

MORE HERE

A new group has been created to help enable LGBT people in Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts to share their sexual orientation with others.

The Providence Gay/Bi/Lesbian Coming Out Social Support Group begins on Wednesday. Licensed social worker Tom Fronczak, who has provided psychotherapy services for several years, will facilitate the group.

Even with greater than ever acceptance of LGBT people in mainstream society, Fronczak said he believes there is a need for a social support group to help those who are still struggling with their sexual orientation.

"The (coming out group) was created by me in response to my increasing awareness that there are a number of wonderful and otherwise high functioning men and women who are in part, socially isolated and lacking supports, mentors and a road map if you will, for effectively coming out and moving into authentic and full self expression around their sexual orientation," Fronczak said.

Fronczak’s clients report experiencing loneliness, depression, anxiety and shame about their sexual orientation. They frequently mentioned the need for a support group. See Rhode Island social worker creates new coming out group EDGE Boston

PARENTING: THE KELLY family had just arrived home from midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in 2005 and were about to have a celebratory drink when 16-year-old Jamie decided the time was right to disclose to his parents that he was gay, writes SHEILA WAYMAN

He told his mother, Vera, first in the kitchen and she quickly called in her husband, Michael, and Jamie told him as well.

“I did get quite upset,” says Jamie, recalling the moment in the company of his parents at home in Firhouse, Dublin, more than three and a half years later.

“We all got upset,” agrees Vera. It was an emotional time anyway for the family as Michael’s mother was extremely ill in hospital. Vera was to learn later from other parents that a person’s coming out often coincides with something else going on, such as serious illness or exam stress.

Jamie was reassured when his parents’ initial reaction was, “Oh is that all”. “They thought it was something else, like drugs. You thought there was something playing on my mind,” he reminds them.

“We weren’t surprised,” says Vera, as she and Michael had already discussed the possibility.

“We weren’t sure,” explains Michael. “We just waited until Jamie found the right time.”

The “right time” for coming out is generally now at a much earlier stage in the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people than it was even a decade ago. The most common age for coming out in Ireland is 17 years, according to research published earlier this year. It found the average age for coming out among people it surveyed was 21.

However, that study of the mental health and wellbeing of LGBT people also found that the most common age of respondents becoming aware of their sexual orientation was 12, while the average age was 14. So there is typically a gap of up to seven years between a child coming out to him or herself and coming out to others.

“This period of seven years on average was reported as a particularly stressful period in the lives of participants,” comments the report, entitled Supporting LGBT Lives , which was launched by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, in February. “In addition to the normal range of challenges associated with adolescence and puberty, respondents reported feelings of loneliness and isolation as well as the fear and/or anticipation of rejection if they come out at this time.”

See Helping gay teens to be themselves Irish Times

Dear Amy: My 18-year-old son, Bob, is leaving for his freshman year of college in August. Bob just received his roommate assignment, and after "friending" him on Facebook, Bob discovered that his roomie is gay.

Bob has four older siblings who have made it successfully through college and dorm life. They've had roommates who were of different races, different cultures and different religions, and have gotten along fine. Bob would prefer a straight roommate.

When I called the university to ask if Bob could be assigned another roomie, the housing director intimated that I was persecuting the gay roommate and that if my son didn't start out rooming with the gay student, then Bob could go to another school. He can put in for a room change during the first two weeks of school if he wants to switch.

I was taken aback. The university (a Jesuit school) has no policy for gay/straight roommates, other than that they don't permit discrimination. Bob will room with the assigned roommate.

In doing an informal poll of my older children and their friends, I discovered that all but one had a gay roommate and didn't stay roommates for long.

Is it discrimination when a straight man doesn't want to room with a gay man? Do you think schools should have a policy about this?

- Worried Mom

For answer, see Ask Amy: Son doesn't want gay as his college roommate Philadelphia Inquirer

By Aaron Coleman, (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

Copy this whole post to another site

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Baby Winged Cupid's got competish! This French spot for Durex has a mystical used purple condom package that flies through town inspiring old folks, male cops and teens to do the nasty. That's right, teens.

To a peppy tune that sounds pulled from the ABBA dustbin, Condom-Cupid flies by two innocent adolescents studying in a bedroom. Well, that's about to turn inta' a lesson in biology! (Ba-dum-bum!) Of course this would never fly in the Red, White and Blue because teens here don't have sex, right? See Meet the Magic Condom, Inspiring Teen Sex and GayCops Gawker

WE SAY Sexual orientation should be a part of the new definition but needs better deliberation.

Sometimes good ol’ Indiana is a little slow catchin’ up with the times and could use a federal push, not just a wake-up call, to get moving. On June 16, the Senate “agreed to expand the definition of hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity,” according to The New York Times.

This is particularly important for those states that lack adequate hate crime laws, including Indiana. It wouldn’t matter what the law in Indiana is; sexual orientation would be incorporated within federal hate crime laws.

In the past, people have been harmed because of their sexual orientation. And so, like race, color, religion or national origin, it should also be incorporated within the definition of a hate crime. This is completely reasonable, and it’s overdue.

But there are problems with the provision; namely, this social issue is attached to a Pentagon bill. Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time. In 2007, the Senate attached similar legislation to a Pentagon spending bill. Republican senators did well pointing out, again, how absurd this is.

However, these weasely tactics aren’t just limited to social issues or the Democrats. Hypocritically, earlier this summer within credit card legislation, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., included a provision that permits carrying guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. Regardless of how you feel about guns, we all should be able to agree they have nothing to do with credit card regulation and therefore should not be included there.

Likewise, these sexual anti-bias provisions have no place in a Pentagon bill. By placing it there, we scrutinize it less and give it less public discussion. And believe it or not, as common sense as it is to incorporate sexual preference within the definition of hate crimes, these anti-bias provisions do warrant more debate.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., raised a reasonable concern that if this is implemented federally, then the states that currently have their own laws for including anti-gay hate crimes will have their state laws overridden. Although we disagree with which level of government should ultimately be in charge of adjudicating hate crimes, it’s a concern that still warrants discussion.

The anti-bias provisions are an improvement to the hate crimes definition. However, even if we agree with those provisions, we don’t want to get in the habit of overlooking instances of the way irrelevant provisions are inserted within legislation. Principally, these anti-bias provisions should have been struck down when voting to add them to a Pentagon bill. See Updating hate crime Indiana Daily Student

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3TJG6H-G6E

EDUCATION COMMITTEE: MOST LESBIAN, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) second-level students have suffered homophobic bullying, the Belong To youth service has told an Oireachtas Education Committee.

More than 20,000 post-primary students are lesbian, gay or bisexual, representing an average of two students in every classroom. A smaller number of students identify as transgender, according to Belong To.

Research involving over 1,100 LGBT participants, funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE), found that half were subject to verbal abuse in school because of their orientation, 40 per cent were verbally threatened by their peers, 34 per cent heard homophobic comments by staff and one-quarter were physically threatened by their peers. Sandra Gowran, director of education policy with the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (Glen), said homophobic bullying was pervasive in schools, regardless of whether they had a particular religious ethos or whether they were co-educational or single sex.

“The bottom line is that these young people are not safe in our schools because of the extent of homophobic bullying,” she said.

Most young people became aware of their LGBT identity at around 12, but did not disclose it to another person until around 17.

“LGBT young people are part of every school . . . in Ireland yet they are largely invisible in any meaningful or positive way,” she said.

See Most gay pupils bullied in school - youth service Irish Times -

“When I first came to New York, I didn’t have a lot of sense of direction,” said Brandon Butler, a 19-year-old student at Columbia, who goes by the name Paris. “I was in need of help.”

As Butler tells it, he found that help at The Door, a comprehensive youth services center based in Soho. “The Door was a place for me to be myself, and an opportunity for me to help out other youth,” he said.

The Door, founded in 1972, provides services in several areas, including adolescent healthcare, careers and education, mental health, creative arts and legal services. But for some of The Door’s regulars, one of its biggest assets is the role it plays as a haven for gay and lesbian youth like Paris.

“Everyone accepts you here,” concluded Paris with a smile.

“Safe space is always an issue for L.G.B.T.Q. kids,” explained Karen Remy, The Door’s director of mental health and personal development, who oversees much of the organization’s L.G.B.T.Q. programming. And The Door is a substantial safe space, too; the center fills several floors of a large building on Broome St., between Sixth Ave. and Varick St., open to youth from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. “I don’t know how many square feet we are,” laughed Remy.

See Through The Door, finding a place to grow and learn The Villager

A trailblazing facility when it was created, the Hetrick-Martin Institute this year is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The organization is the country’s oldest and largest agency serving the needs of gay and lesbian youth.

Located on Astor Place near Broadway, the institute offers academic-enrichment and job-readiness programs, ranging from college prep classes, an on-site G.E.D program and computer training to career counseling and in-house internships. Also available are a variety of art and culture courses, including dance and theater.

Supportive services include free weekday meals, counseling and help finding housing. Last year, Hetrick-Martin assisted more than 1,000 L.G.B.T.Q. (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning) youth and their families.

As part of Hetrick-Martin Institute’s 30th anniversary, a roundtable panel discussion was held two weeks ago with founding and current staff members to look at the organization’s impact on L.G.B.T.Q. youth and to examine what has and hasn’t changed in the past three decades. In 1979, two educators on gay and lesbian issues who were life partners, Dr. Emery Hetrick, a psychiatrist, and Dr. Damien Martin, a professor at New York University, created the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth. In 1988 it was renamed Hetrick-Martin Institute in honor of its founders.

In turn, Hetrick-Martin Institute became the host agency for the Harvey Milk High School, a small public school catering to at-risk L.G.B.T.Q. youth. Hetrick-Martin manages the entire facility, but the Department of Education operates the school, and accepts applications for prospective students.

See Pioneering institute is still going strong after 30 years The Villager -

On June 29 Gov. Deval Patrick signed the budget for the state’s Fiscal year 2010, which began this month, but how much funding will go towards the state’s LGBT-related programs remains in question. In prior years the state budget included specifically earmarked dollar amounts for state programs serving LGBT youth, elders, and victims of domestic violence. This year, in response to the economic downturn and growing public criticism of the earmarking process, Patrick and the legislature eliminated most of the dollar-specific earmarks from this year’s budget. The new budget includes language specifying that the state’s LGBT programs receive funding, but the decisions about how much money to provide are left to the discretion of the state agencies that oversee the money.

The state’s HIV/AIDS budget has its own dedicated line item in the Department of Public Health budget, making the outlook for HIV/AIDS funding more certain. The line item is funded at $35.3 million, a slight reduction from last year.

Curt Rogers, executive director of the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project (GMDVP), said the Department of Public Health (DPH), which provides funding to his agency, has not yet told him how much his organization will receive this year. He said he believes DPH is still analyzing the new budget, which includes substantial cuts to public health and many other program areas. Rogers said DPH commissioner John Auerbach, who is openly gay, and DPH staff have been strongly supportive of GMDVP’s work, but funding for domestic violence programs overall was cut in the final budget, and Rogers expects GMDVP and other agencies will have to take a hit.

"They’ve given us a tentative contract for a much lower amount [than last year], and there’s the implicit message that that contract will go up once the numbers are set. ... But it’s really tricky to start spending money into the fiscal year without knowing how much we’ll have for the total fiscal year," said Rogers.
See Budget for fiscal year leaves funding for LGBT programs in doubt Bay Windows

KALAMAZOO -- A unanimous Kalamazoo City Commission vote Monday to expand legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgender people did not settle the issue.

Opponents organized as the Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination announced they would begin circulating petitions today seeking a November referendum on the City Commission's second attempt to outlaw employment, housing and public-accommodation discrimination based on sexual orientation.

If the group is successful in collecting at least 1,274 signatures on petitions opposing the new ordinance, the 10-page measure would be law for less than a month.

Under the Kalamazoo City Charter, petitions challenging a commission decision must be filed within 20 days of the law's effective date to either force the commission to rescind its decision or send the issue to a general-election ballot. City Clerk Scott Borling said the new ordinance becomes effective July 9.

Borling said July 29 is the deadline for filing petitions to challenge the ordinance.

If petitioners meet the deadline and Borling certifies they have sufficient signatures, Monday night's action would be suspended.

See Gay-rights ordinance reborn Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com

FORT WORTH — A crowd of more than 100 protesters chanted "No more!" from the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse on Sunday evening as they demanded an investigation of a police raid that happened hours earlier at a gay nightclub.

One patron was seriously injured during the raid at the Rainbow Lounge, which resulted in the arrests of seven people, protesters said.

Speaker after speaker decried what they called excessive force during the raid, an accusation that police dispute.

"I was scared," said Todd Camp, a former Star-Telegram writer who helped organize the protest. "I have never seen anything like this in my life."

The rally lasted about 20 minutes, and then some protesters marched down Main Street, holding signs and waving flags. A second protest is planned for 7 p.m. Sunday at the Fort Worth Convention Center.

The Fort Worth raid occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, when police raided the Stonewall Inn on the night of June 28, 1969. The protest by gays against police harassment helped trigger the U.S. gay-rights movement.

See Demonstrators protest police raid on gay bar Fort Worth Star Telegram