Lilly Wakefield

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Trans woman forced to cut hair and ‘remove breast tissue’ by Qatari officials

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A trans woman in Qatar has described how she was forced to cut her hair and had her breast tissue “removed” after being arrested for who she is. 

LGBTQ+ rights, or lack thereof, in Qatar have been in the spotlight since the country was announced as host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. 

While there has been global outrage over Qatar’s criminalisation of gay sex, punishable with jail time or the death penalty, little has been said about the fate of trans Qataris. 

In Qatar, trans people can be arrested without charge for “violating public decency”, simply for being trans. 

Speaking to the BBC under a pseudonym and through an encrypted messaging service, one trans woman named as “Shahd” said she wanted to speak out about the persecution of trans people in Qatar, telling the publication: “I am very afraid, but I just want people to know that we do exist.” 

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Shahd said she had been arrested for “impersonating a woman”, and was forced to cut her hair. 

Because she had been taking oestrogen, procured from abroad, authorities demanded that she “remove her breast tissue”, leaving her with wounds across her chest. 

Shahd said she has been “arrested and interrogated several times because of my identity”, and is constantly in fear of being detained again. 

She added: “I lost my job and my friends… I lost everything.”

A recent report from Human Rights Watch (HRW), showed how Qatar has arrested, abused and harassed LGBTQ+ people as recently as September 2022. HRW documented beatings and sexual assault by police, and heard from trans women who said they were ordered to attend conversion therapy by officials.

Shahd confirmed this to be true, that LGBTQ+ people who are arrested are referred to doctors for “therapy” sessions. 

But a government official said that Qatar “categorically rejected” these claims, and told the BBC that at the World Cup, people “from all walks of life come together in Qatar to build bridges of friendship and break down barriers of misunderstanding”. 

Despite the country’s horrific human rights record, last month FIFA officials urged players to “focus on the football” rather than “handing out moral lessons” during the World Cup. 

A letter from FIFA president Gianni Infantino and secretary general Fatma Samoura, sent to all nations competing in the World Cup, reportedly said: “Please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists.

“At FIFA, we try to respect all opinions and beliefs, without handing out moral lessons to the rest of the world… No one people or culture or nation is ‘better’ than any other.

“Please let’s all remember that and let football take centre stage.”

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Germany elects first-ever trans MPs

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Germany will welcome its first-ever trans MPs to the Bundestag after a federal election that saw the centre-left SDP narrowly beat the centre-right CDU.

According to preliminary results on Monday morning (27 September), the SPD and its chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz won 25.7 per cent of the vote.

Germany’s Green Party had its best-ever result in a national poll, 14.8 per cent, and Scholz believes he has a mandate to for a coalition with the Greens and liberal politicians, which would bring to an end 16 years of centre-right rule.

In another historic first, two transgender Green MPs were elected to the Bundestag – Tessa Ganserer and Nyke Slawik.

Ganserer, 44, who has been a member of parliament for Nuremberg North since 2013, came out as a trans woman in 2019. She became the the first out transgender person to sit in a regional or national parliament in Germany, and this is the first election she has run since coming out.

When she came out, Ganserer used her own experience of transition to declare the need for Germany to update the 1980 Transsexual Act, which provides a convoluted process for trans people to change their legal name and gender.

She said at the time: “Gender identity is a human right… in future it should be possible for a person to apply to change their gender recorded at birth.”

On Monday, she wrote on Twitter: “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the trust shown by the voters.

“I’m still overwhelmed, but I’m really looking forward to my new job in Berlin!

“My congratulations too Nyke Slawik. #QueerRepresentationMatters.”

For Nyke Slawik, who is just 27 years old, this will be her first term as an MP for the Leverkusen, Cologne IV constituency.

She unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 2017, and for the European parliament in 2019.

According to Queer.de, Slawik ran in this year’s election with the hope of giving young people a voice in the Bundestag, and is determined to use her position to fight the climate crisis and increase diversity in Germany’s parliament as a trans lawmaker.

In a speech at the Green Party congress in April, she said: “Every time has its fighters. Those of the climate protectors. Those of the Greens. And those of the colorful. This is our time!”

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Instagram launches anti-bullying feature to combat ‘racist, sexist, homophobic’ abuse

Instagram is launching a new anti-bullying feature to filter out “racist, sexist, homophobic” abuse in your DMs.

While Instagram already “proactively looks for hate speech or bullying” in public comments, the new feature will focus the abuse users receive in direct messages.

The new tool will filter DM requests, where users say they receive the most abusive messages, containing “offensive words, phrases and emojis”.

Users will be able to toggle filters on and off for DMs and comments in a new “Hidden Words” privacy section, where they will be able to add words, phrases and emojis that they don’t want to see in addition to a predefined list.

The list of terms already created by Instagram was developed in collaboration with “anti-discrimination and anti-bullying organisations”.

Instagram said: “We understand the impact that abusive content – whether it’s racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other kind of abuse – can have on people.

“Nobody should have to experience that on Instagram. But combatting abuse is a complex challenge and there isn’t one single step we can take to eliminate it completely.”

To further combat hate on the platform, Instagram will also start filtering common misspellings of offensive terms in public comments, “so that even if a word you don’t want to see is accidentally or deliberately spelled wrong, you still won’t see it in your comments”.

In addition, a third new feature means that when a user blocks someone, they will also be able to preemptively block any new accounts the user might create in the future.

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Gay torture victims held on terror charges in Chechnya without a shred of proof

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Two gay men are being held on terror charges in Chechnya, having escaped torture in the homophobic republic before being returned by Russian police.

Salek Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, who is just 17 years old, fled to Russia in June 2020 with the help of the Russian LGBT Network.

They were relocated by the group to Nizhny Novogorod, a city around 400 kilometres east of Moscow, having been tortured by the Chechen special police for running an opposition Telegram channel.SPONSORED CONTENTPandemic or Not, Don’t Skip These 3 Health ChecksBy Sutter Health

Earlier this month, the two gay men went missing and it was later revealed they had been forcefully returned to their hometown, Gudermes in Chechnya, the site of deadly so-called gay purges. Russian and Chechen police reportedly worked together to capture the men.

The men were left “in mortal danger”, after their lawyer followed them to Chechnya and found they were being “pressured” to refuse legal representation.

Now, the Russian LGBT Network has been informed that the men are being held on the terrorism charge of aiding an illegal armed group.

The network said in a statement: “The investigation, however, did not provide objective evidence of the guilt of Ismail Isaev and Salekh Magamadov.”

On 8 February, the European Court of Human Rights “ordered Russia to explain the reasons for the detention of Magamadov and Isaev, to admit independent lawyers, medical workers, and their next of kin to them”.

But despite the order, legal representatives were not able to see their clients.

Sayputy Isaev, the 17-year-old’s father, said he was beaten and “blackmailed with the life of his son” if he did not sign a statement on the minor’s behalf to refuse a lawyer.

Magamadov and Isayev’s case is currently being considered, and they could face up to 15 years in prison in Chechnya. The men themselves said that “they had to sign statements and testimonies under threats and pressure”.

They are currently being held in SIZO no. 2, a pre-trial detention centre in Grozny, Chechnya.

You may have heard of Abby and Brittany Hensel before, either on Oprah, in Time…

In 2017, reports began to emerge of a “gay purge” in Chechnya, involving mass detention, abductions, torture and abuse of human rights against the LGBT+ community. Reports of such atrocities have continued in the years since.

The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadryov, has denied the reports as well the existence of any LGBT+ people in the region. He was hit with sanctions by the US government in July 2020 over the atrocities.

The UK government also ordered strict sanctions to be placed upon three top Chechen officials charged with torturing LGBT+ people in the region’s “gay purge” in December 2020.

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New Secretary of State Antony Blinken Will Allow US Embassies to Fly Pride Flags Again

Joe Biden’s new secretary of state has made several promises to the LGBT+ community, including “urgently” appointing an LGBT+ envoy.

Antony Blinken, who will lead the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of State, made the comments at his confirmation hearing with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday (19 January), according to CNN.

He outlined changes he would make to ensure that the US government was “standing up for and defending” the LGBT+ community once Biden is in office.

The position of LGBT+ envoy, which was created to oversee US government efforts to support LGBT+ human rights, was left vacant during Trump’s presidency.

But Blinken said that filling the role was “a matter, I think, of some real urgency”.

He added: “We’ve seen violence directed against LGBTQI people around the world increase.

“We’ve seen, I believe, the highest number of murders of transgender people, particularly women of colour, that we’ve seen ever.

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“And so I think the United States playing the role that it should be playing in standing up for and defending the rights of LGBTQI people is something that the department is going to take on and take on immediately.”

The new secretary of state also said that while working for the Biden administration, he would officially repudiate the findings of Trump’s anti-LGBT+ “Commission on Unalienable Rights”.

The commission, which was supposedly based on “natural law”, was formed by the Trump administration in July, 2019, to undercut the US government’s existing human rights laws.

The group was dominated by officials with anti-LGBT+ views, with seven of the ten members having expressed these views publicly, and when the commission was announced, anti-LGBT+ activist Brian Brown said it was an “extraordinary opening” to reverse LGBT+ equality.

Lastly, Blinken said he would allow all US embassies to fly Pride flags, after Trump banned US embassies from flying it for the entirety of June, 2020.

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Nova Scotia Will Now Cover Cost of Top Surgery for Non-binary Folk

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has announced that it will cover the cost of top surgery for non-binary people through its Medical Services Insurance (MSI).

Nova Scotia’s insurance programme is “designed to provide eligible residents with coverage for medically required hospital, medical, dental and optometric services”.

n June, 2019, the Nova Scotia government announced it would begin covering top surgery for trans women, having previously only provided it for trans men.

But now, effective 2 November 2, non-binary residents will also be able to access surgery for free.

According to CBC, the change came after Sebastian Gaskarth, who is non-binary, filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission in 2019 after they were denied surgery.

Gaskarth said they feel “relieved” and “really happy” about the change, and added: “It just affirms who I am as a person and for [whoever] else needs the surgery as well.”

They said that the decision was not just about surgery, but also about MSI publicly acknowledging that gender is not binary.

“Which is huge,” they said, “which will hopefully propel MSI and other organisations to start to be more inclusive and to see things beyond the binary.”

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However, they told local radio station NEWS 95.7: “I’m happy that I’m able to share my story, but I would hope that MSI, moving forward, would be more proactive in changing and supporting trans individuals so it’s not a matter of people having to go through this process to human rights complaints to make sure that they are getting the support that they need.”

Community legal worker Mark Culligan told CBC that the change was a “real milestone”, and said: “The previous coverage was based on the understanding that transitioning happens from male to female, from female to male, and what was unique about Sebastian’s case was that they were asking for a surgery that more accurately reflected their identity as a non-binary individual.”

In July last year, Nova Scotia rolled out non-binary and gender-free options on ID documents, allowing residents to choose X as a gender, or choose not to display a gender, on their provincial driver’s licenses, birth certificates and photo ID cards.

At the time, Patricia Arab, the minister of internal services, said: “A priority for our government is making sure we are as inclusive and diverse as possible, and making sure all our residents feel safe and that they have a place here.

“This isn’t the last step in the conversation but it’s certainly a significant move to make sure that we have a safe and inclusive community here in our province.”

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Police ‘Cracked Jokes’ while Trans Woman Bled on the Floor after Attack

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Kendall Stephens, a trans woman who survived a horrific transphobic attack in her own home, has described the shocking reaction by police who “cracked jokes while she bled onto the floor”.

Warning: contains graphic descriptions of violence against a trans person.×

Kendall Stephens, a community advocate and Temple University student, was brutally attacked by a group of people in her own home in August this year. 

The 34-year-old was studying and enjoying a quiet night in with her two goddaughters, aged 12 and 16, when she heard a fight breaking out outside her house in South Philadelphia.

When the group refused to disperse, she called emergency services, but one of the women turned on her and punched her in the face. The attacked and her friends then forced their way into Stephens’s house to continue the assault.

Recalling the attack in an interview with Human Rights Campaign, Stephens said: “I ended up in my dining room getting attacked by four women at all sides of me, and then suddenly one of the women picked up a wooden decorative planter and began hitting me about my head and face with it, causing me to become concussed and black out momentarily.

“Throughout the attack the woman referred to me as a ‘man’ and ‘tranny’.

“The assault did not end there. Several men stormed into the home as well and pulled the women away, but did not pull them away before getting a few hits in as well and calling me the N word and a ‘f**king tranny’.”

Police refused to arrest trans woman’s attacker.

Stephens was left with her nose broken in two places, bruised ribs, swelling on her face, a head contusion, “a busted lip” and damaged gum vessels that caused two of her teeth to become necrotic.

When the police arrived, however, they had little sympathy for the trans woman who had been brutally beaten.

“The responding police officers were very unhelpful,” said Stephens.

“They were belligerent and unsympathetic and refused to arrest one of my attackers, who I had ID’d to them (she was a few doors down continuing to hurl transphobic slurs while they were there).

“Furthermore, they said that by looking at my injuries, they regarded the incident as a simple assault, and as such, I had to make a private criminal complaint.”

While this was happening, her husband arrived home, and they both begged with police to take action. They left without confirming the attackers’ identities or making any arrests.

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Man Who Fired Gun Outside a Bar Bar while Shouting Anti-gay Slurs Jailed

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A man who showed up to an LGBT+ bar with a rifle intent on shooting the patrons inside will serve less than four years in prison, but was not convicted of a hate crime.

Freddie Lee Doyle, 32, previously pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm, and has been held without bail for about 14 months.

According to Metro Weekly, Doyle drove to Rehab Bar & Grill in St Louis, Missouri on June 27, 2019, equipped with a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, bipod, scope, tactical light, four full rifle magazines and about 160 rifle rounds.

When he arrived in his car, he approached a man who was leaving another LGBT+ venue. Doyle asked him to get into the vehicle, before grabbing a rifle and aiming it at him.

When the man fled, Doyle got out of the car and chased him, aiming the rifle at Rehab patrons and screaming obscenities and homophobic slurs. He then started a verbal countdown before firing the gun into the air.

Assistant US attorney Janea Lamar said police rushed to the scene after hearing the gunshot, but Doyle hid his gun and told them the shooter had run down an alley, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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Police discovered the rifle a short time later and arrested Doyle. When the victims of the attempted shooting came to identify him, he began yelling homophobic slurs again.

In charging documents, FBI special agent Jennifer Drews wrote that Doyle said if he’d had more time, he would “have killed those faggots”.

Stephen Williams, defending, said that he had been under the influence of methamphetamine and had struggled with depression, anxiety and ADHD.

Chief judge Rodney Sippel, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, sentenced Doyle 46 months in prison, less than four years.

Shockingly, the motive for Doyle’s crime was not discussed in court and was reported by the media as “unclear”, however prosecutors agreed to not charge him with a hate crime in exchange for his previous guilty plea.

Assistant attorney General Eric Dreiband, of the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, said in a statement after the sentencing: “All people in this nation have the right to enjoy themselves at a bar and grill without fearing that they will be threatened, shot, and seriously injured or killed by bigoted criminals.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate this kind of hateful violence.

“The Civil Rights Division strives to protect all Americans from acts of aggression and violence based on their race, colour or sexual orientation.”

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Millions in COVID Relief Funds Went to Anti-LGBT+ Hate Groups and Televangelists

Donald Trump and his administration have given millions of dollars intended to protect small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic to anti-LGBT+ hate groups and homophobic televangelists.

According to the US Small Business Administration, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) “is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll”.

While the Trump administration initially resisted releasing information on which companies had been given PPP loans, on Tuesday, July 7, it released a list of companies that had been given more than $150,000.

According to LGBTQ Nation, the entire list contains just two prominent LGBT+ organisations – the National LGBTQ Task Force was approved for a loan between $350,000 and $1 million and the LGBTQ Victory Fund was given between $150,000 and $350,000.

But, according to the Trump administration data, religious groups and churches were given a total of $7.3 billion, anti-LGBT+ hate groups and homophobic televangelists were given up to $16 million in loans.

Which anti-LGBT+ hate groups were given loans by the Donald Trump administration?

The American Family Association (AFA), a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated hate group committed to “combating the homosexual agenda”, was approved for a loan of up to $2 million. The group describesbeing gay “unnatural” and “unhealthy”.

Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, has called for the criminalisation of gay sex, and said in 2010: “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”

He has also claimed that gay people are “rarely monogamous and have as many as 300 to 1,000 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime”.

Liberty Counsel, another hate group described by the SPLC as “a legal organisation advocating for anti-LGBT+ discrimination under the guise of religious liberty”, was granted a loan of up to $1 million by the Trump administration.

Liberty Counsel has been involved in a multitude of anti-LGBT+ legal cases, including representing Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, defending conversion therapy and even pressing Republican lawmakers to strip protections for LGBT+ people from an anti-lynching bill.

The Pacific Justice Institute, whose founder said that failing to stop same-sex marriage in America was like failing to stop Adolf Hitler, was approved for up to $350,000.

The megachurch of Robert Jeffress, an Islamophobic and anti-LGBT+ televangelist, was given between $1 million and $5 million.

Jeffress’s well-documented history of anti-LGBT+ remarks includes claiming gay people “molest children”, promoting the so-called conversion of young queer people, and that being gay is a “filthy practice” that leads to disease.

He has even compared gay sex to plugging a TV electrical cord into the wrong outlet and causing it to explode. 

Joyce Meyer, another televangelist who once said people “chose” to be gay because they had been “hurt by somebody from the opposite sex, and they don’t know how to function right in those relationships”, was approved for a massive loan of between $5 million and $10 million.

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Trans Candidate ‘Shatters the Lavender Ceiling’ in West Virginia

West Virginia elected its first-ever openly trans official on Tuesday, June 9, making history and “shattering the lavender ceiling”.

Rosemary Ketchum, a trans woman, was elected as councilwoman and won her bid for the third ward seat in Wheeling City, West Virginia.

When she assumes her role on July 1, she will become one of only 27 openly trans elected officials in the whole of the United States, and one of four out LGBT+ officials in her state.

According to The Intelligencer Wheeling News-Register, Ketchum said that although her gender identity was not a large part of her campaign and she thinks that “people had a lot more going on than thinking about a transgender candidate”, her election “matters a lot”.

She said: “I’m incredibly excited and grateful. I know this was a close race.

“I think it shows how much people care about the third ward… I’m excited to fulfil the promises I made and work for the third ward and and the entire city of Wheeling.”

Ketchum, an active community organiser who works at the National Alliance for Mental Illness, said on her campaign website: “From addiction to homelessness, I work every day to create real community-based solutions to some of our biggest problems.

“I believe that we must work WITH our community members to solve problems rather than without them or worse – against them.”

Mayor Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which backed Ketchum’s campaign, said in a statement: “Rosemary has shattered a lavender ceiling in West Virginia and will join the growing number of out trans elected officials serving nationwide.

“Trans people are severely underrepresented in elected office – with just 26 out trans officials anywhere in the country – so Rosemary’s victory will resonate well beyond her state.

“We know Rosemary’s race will inspire other trans people from conservative states to consider a run for office in their communities – and then those candidates will inspire others as well.

“That virtuous cycle is the key to building trans acceptance and political power long-term.”

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