The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that more and more gays are coming out at an earlier age. As a result, local schools and other institutions involving young people are starting to create policies that reflect the changed environment. The Orleans Parish School Board expects to adopt an anti-bullying policy within the next month that will protect common targets like LGBT kids, board member Woody Koppel said. Jefferson Parish Public Schools already has a zero-tolerance bullying policy, although it doesn't specifically mention LGBT kids, spokeswoman Beth Branley said. St. Tammany Parish School Board has an anti-bullying policy but nothing specifically regarding gay or lesbian students, spokeswoman Meredith Mendez said. Both the Algiers Charter Schools and the Recovery School District in New Orleans have anti-discrimination policies that don't mention LGBT issues. But new RSD Superintendent John White said that, while he is still working to understand the school environment in New Orleans, he anticipates being supportive of LGBT students. "My time elsewhere and in New York taught me that gay-straight alliances are an important part of giving students a strong sense of identity and belonging." White, a former deputy chancellor for the New York City Department of Education, also noted that his former district includes Harvey Milk School, a separate school in the East Village designed for LGBT students. In June, federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan ordered schools to give equal treatment to LGBT-friendly groups like gay-straight alliances, or GSAs, a fairly new kind of school club formed to end bullying and isolation of gay kids through school activities and awareness campaigns. One of the oldest GSAs in the area is at Benjamin Franklin High School, where counsellor Janet DeGrazio said that over the past eight or nine years, the club has typically had 20 or so members, a good number of them straight. The underlying principle is simple, said Franklin Principal Tim Rusnak: "Adolescents want to be accepted by other adolescents." Ben Marcoviz, principal at New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy in eastern New Orleans, said that along with a knitting club and a Japanese club, the school's founding class asked to start a GSA. He said it helps provide an environment where all students can flourish. "A lot of kids who come to our school (from other schools) felt physically and emotionally unsafe," he said. "Their learning is obviously impeded."
Arriel Michelle Williams, reports The Associated Press, is in the early stages of a painstaking physical transformation from man to woman, and the clanging dissonance between her masculine voice and high heels, earrings and fashionable ladies’ tops risks disquieting potential employers. She left high school before graduation, so her bare-bones resume is limited to stints in a Burger King kitchen, as a parking attendant, volunteering at a drug addiction center and fetching food orders at an Atlanta sports arena. Even with those obstacles — not to mention a poor economy — the 26-year-old is pursuing a social work career, and the government’s helping her get ready. Williams and 16 other transgender men and women graduated Friday from a month-long, city-funded job training and life skills pilot program in the District of Columbia that aims to find jobs for an often-marginalized population. “I don’t like the stigma that all transgenders are sex workers, and that’s all they’re good for. I know for myself, I am an intelligent individual and very resourceful to last over 10 years on the streets,” said Williams, who was born Terrell Williams and began gender-changing hormone treatments about three months ago. “I just felt that this was the time to be a part of something greater than me.” Washington’s program is one of several transgender-oriented career development classes, workshops or job fairs that have sprouted around the country. D.C. officials say theirs is unique because it’s organized and fully funded by the city government. “If we create the employment opportunities that you deserve, class, then you won’t have to be out on the streets doing things you don’t want to be doing,” D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray told graduates Friday, calling the job training program simply the “right thing” to do. The programs, which teach basics like creating a resume as well as more nuanced workplace skills, reflect a growing appreciation for the workplace obstacles confronting transgender people. Studies show those who identify as transgender routinely endure discrimination, struggle with unemployment, and turn in disproportionate numbers to drug dealing and prostitution to earn money. “What we see is people who transition, their income rapidly declines. It happens so fast for some people that many folks don’t have a safety net, whether that’s family to lean on or friends or financial savings,” said Gunner Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. Only 15 states plus D.C. have laws banning workplace discrimination based on gender identity, which give workers an avenue to file lawsuits. But even when employers are unfazed by the prospect of hiring transgender workers, other hurdles remain. Advocates say they regularly encounter transgender job hopefuls who left school early because of bullying and therefore have little formal schooling or work history. Some people change jobs — and their gender and legal name — later in life, which can make it difficult to prove the authenticity of what may be an impressive resume. Then there are workers who get interviews but are rejected after presenting themselves in person as transgender, not to mention workers who select jobs at transgender organizations because they think that’s their only option. A survey of 6,450 transgender people released in February by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 90 percent of respondents had reported harassment or discrimination on the job; 15 percent said they left school early because of harassment; and 26 percent said they’d lost a job because they were transgender. D.C. police have also responded to a series of attacks in recent months against transgender people, though there is no indication the incidents are related.
The first transsexual to win a seat in Poland's parliament said on Monday she was on a mission to help Poles in this staunchly Roman Catholic country to improve the understanding of problems facing people who have changed their gender. Reuters reports that 57 year-old Anna Grodzka is from a newly formed liberal party called Palikot's Support Movement that stunned Poland's staid political establishment by winning 10-percent of the vote in Sunday's election. Founded by vodka tycoon Janusz Palikot, the party has attracted many younger voters with its support for gay rights, abortion and legalisation of soft drugs and with its attacks on the powerful Roman Catholic Church. "My mission is to familiarise people with transgenderism," Grodzka told Polsat News television. "While making this decision I knew what to expect," she added, referring to "various unpleasantnesses" she endured before and during the campaign. A graduate in psychology, Grodzka completed her sex change last year. In the election, she won 18,000 votes in a district of Krakow in southern Poland in the election. "I decided to be a candidate for Palikot's Movement because I want the voice of people who are excluded and discriminated against in the Polish political system to be heard," she wrote in her blog. "I believe that little by little does the trick." Prime Minister Donald Tusk's ruling centre-right Civic Platform won Sunday's election and is expected to press on with cautious economic reforms and closer ties with Poland's European Union partners. Palikot was a lawmaker in Civic Platform until, impatient with its conservatism on social issues, he broke away to set up his own party.
The New Zealand Herald reports that a drunken 16-year-old allegedly stabbed a gay policeman before running down the road yelling "I killed someone", the Crown says. A trial began this morning for the murder of Denis Norman Phillips at the High Court in Auckland. The 59-year-old policeman was found dead in his Papakura one-bedroom flat on 31 July 2010, the day after he was stabbed four times with a serrated knife. Willie John Ahsee, now 17, is on trial for the murder and pleaded not guilty. Crown prosecutor June Jelas made an opening statement to the jury today, describing the background to the night of the stabbing. "I suggest to you this isn't going to be a case of whodunnit, the real issue will be what the accused had in his mind," she said. Ahsee lived within walking distance of the policeman, and described the older man as his boxing coach whom he would regularly visit to work out with in a converted garage gym. Phillips was working for the New Zealand police at the time as a temporary constable, sworn in to work as a 'jailer'. On the night of Phillips' death, Ahsee went round to the policeman's flat and was scheduled for a workout. Neighbours told police they heard two voices and a series of "banging, thumping" noises coming from the usually quiet house, said Ms Jelas."A voice said something along the lines of 'Have you had enough ... or I have had enough." An alarmed neighbour called the police at 10:14pm after Ahsee was heard "yelling and screaming" on his way home, including yells of "I killed someone." The teenager returned to his family home "emotional and intoxicated" and smashed two windows, so his mother asked police to keep him overnight to detox. The next day Ahsee confessed to his mother he had stabbed the policeman, and he went to a police station. "He admits to stabbing the deceased but he said he can't remember anything about it. He can't say what was in his mind," Jelas said. Police then went round to the Papakura address and found Mr Phillips face down on "heavily bloodstained" hallway carpet. Blood was also splattered throughout the kitchen, lounge, dining room and bathroom and across various appliances, chattels and clothing. Jelas described Mr Phillips as a gay man who liked young men and was known to proposition them "so to speak". Police records show Ahsee denied any sexual or physical contact with the policeman, she said. Jelas also pointed out a pair of blue shorts with the accused's saliva on the crotch area in evidence photos. The deceased's laptop and cellphone were taken from his house and the laptop was found in Ahsee's family home, while cellphone records traced Ahsee's family using the stolen cellphone days after the death. The trial is set down to take three weeks.
Novak Djokovic wanders shirtless in a tight pair of shorts last week through the streets of Monaco.
Earlier I posted about Australian rugby star and same sex marriage advocate David Pocock, and here is a picture of the smoking sexy Wallabies’ flank in action.
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