Features

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What do people think of long-acting HIV meds?

Over the years, HIV has evolved into a chronic condition necessitating life-long medication. Now, researchers are studying the efficacy and acceptability of long-acting HIV medications that may keep thevirus under control for a month or longer. Can long-acting therapies provide an alternative to daily dosing? And, what do people who stand to benefit from this way of dosing think about the possibility of not having to take daily oral medications? “HIV has been part of my life for 33 or 34 years, and medication for almost 20,” said Efrén Solanas, a long-term survivor in the Bay Area. “I’ve been taking […]

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Can a Religious School Fire a Gay Teacher? It’s Complicated.

Lynn Starkey worked at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis for nearly 40 years. In May, however, the Roman Catholic school fired Starkey as a guidance counselor after officials discovered that she is married to a woman.  In July, Starkey, 63, sued the school and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, claiming, in part, that they discriminated against her on the basis of her sexual orientation. In May, the school’s principal notified Starkey, who has been married to her spouse since 2015, that her contract would not be renewed, stating in a letter that civil unions are in violation of her contract and “contrary to […]

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Activists Win a Grueling Battle Against an Anti-LGBT Church

Activists have won a long battle to stop an anti-LGBT+ church operating out of Texas a public school, after protesting every week for more than a year. Celebration Church, which is openly anti-LGBT+, had been renting space at the Austin Independent School District’s (AISD) Mueller Performing Arts Centre for its services. Protest organiser and pastor for the AntiFascism NonChristian Church, Candace Aylor, said in a press release: “This was the goal, getting bigots out of public spaces. It goes against our closely held beliefs to abide bigotry and oppression, especially when openly, publicly permitted.  “What we learned today, what we confirmed from what […]

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Zero for Zeros Campaign Calls Out Companies Who Fund Antigay Politicians

The Zero for Zeros campaign released today, a new round of companies who receive a perfect 100 rating from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), but use their corporate PACs to fund elected officials in Congress who lead opposition to LGBT equality. The list of anti-LGBT elected officials includes Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert as well as Senators Mike Enzi and Ted Cruz, among others. The campaign aims to pressure companies to review and end their financial support of these extreme anti-LGBT politicians. Today’s companies are some of the biggest consumer names in the world and include: […]

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When Transgender Travelers Walk Into Scanners, Invasive Searches Sometimes Wait on the Other Side

On Sept. 15, 2017, Olivia stepped into a full-body scanner at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. When she stepped out, a female Transportation Security Administration officer approached. On the scanner’s screen was an outline of a human body with the groin highlighted. The officer told Olivia that because of something the scanner had detected, a pat-down would be necessary. As a transgender woman, Olivia, 36, had faced additional TSA scrutiny before. On those occasions, a manual search at the checkpoint had been enough to assure TSA officers that there wasn’t a weapon or explosive hidden in her undergarments. This encounter […]

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Trans Fertility in Conversation

In January of 2019, Japan’s Supreme Court upheld a law requiring trans people to be sterilized in order to legally change their gender. After the ruling, I remember seeing a tweet by the Economist sharing the article,“Should transgender people be sterilised before they are recognised?”. Posing this as a question legitimizes the idea that individual reproductive rights are up for debate. They are not.  I was infuriated, and deeply hurt. The right to reproduce is fundamental. To be told by the state that you must trade your right to have biological children to have your gender legally recognized is a chilling […]

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Trans Prisoner Must be Provided with Gender-confirmation Surgery, Court Rules

A woman in Idaho could be the first transgender inmate to receive gender-confirmation surgery through a court order. A panel of judges ruled on August 23 that Adree Edmo’s gender-confirmation surgery should be provided by Idaho and Corizon, the state’s prison healthcare provider. The surgery is estimated to cost between $20,000 and $30,000. Edmo is serving 10 years for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy when she was 22 and is scheduled for release in 2021. She is not eligible for parole. The 9th circuit court of appeals ruling agreed with a December 2018 ruling from US District Judge B Lynn […]

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There’s No Scientific Evidence a ‘Gay Gene’ Exists

Publication of the largest-ever study of the roles of genes in homosexual behavior is fanning the debate over whether being gay is due to genes or environment.  First reported at a genetics conference in 2018, the study found five genetic variants associated with having a same-sex sexual partner (SN: 10/20/18). But those variants, called SNPs, don’t predict people’s sexual behavior, researchers report in the Aug. 30 Science.  “There is no ‘gay gene’ that determines whether someone has same-sex partners,” says Andrea Ganna, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the University of Helsinki.  Family studies have suggested that genetics account […]

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Boyfriend Charged Over Murder of 16th Trans Woman to be Killed in US this Year

Police investigating the murder of Tracy Single, the 16th trans woman of colour killed in the US this year, have arrested a man she had been dating. Joshua Dominic Bourgeois was arrested Friday, August 23, on suspicion of Single’s murder, according to ABC News. The 25-year-old became a suspect after investigators learned he had been in a “dating relationship” with Single, also known as Tracy Williams. Police said she was found dead with a puncture wound and several lacerations in a gas station parking lot in west Houston on July 30. She was 22 years old. It took officials two weeks […]

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Philadelphia Suicide Throws ‘Transamory’ into the Spotlight

When Maurice “Reese” Willoughby died by suicide last week, it came at the tail end of months of cyberbullying after a video emerged of him defending his girlfriend — a transgender woman named Faith — to a crowd of people who were hurling transphobic and homophobic comments. “You f— what?” shouts the person holding the camera, in a video that racked up millions of views. Willoughby was an aspiring rapper from the Philadelphia area, and initial reports stated that he took his own life because of the bullying seen in the viral video. However his girlfriend, Faith Palmer, said on social […]

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