10/28/13

Watch "Losing Luke" Award winning documentary about first openly transgender student to graduate a Oklahoma High school

Source Newsday.com: Michael Clark, a freshman with The Film School at Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD), was recently awarded “Best Documentary” at the inaugural All-American High School Film Festival in New York City, where he also received nominations for Best Director and Best Overall Picture. Clark’s short film Losing Luke is about a transgender girl named Katie (previously known as “Luke”) and her experiences in an Oklahoma high school

Clark’s film was the only full-length student film to screen during the festival’s opening night. Tom Oliva, the festival’s executive director, said organizers wanted to give the 1,500 attendees a taste of the quality of films that would be screened that weekend.

“In the middle of the Bible Belt, many are raised to look down on transgender people,” he said. “With this film, I wanted to help stomp out this ignorance in the community by sharing her story and humanizing her.”



Among thousands of submissions, the top films from each category were sent to a panel of celebrity judges that included Edward Burns, Dylan McDermott, Morgan Spurlock, Diablo Cody, Danny Rose, Kristen Stewart, Carlton Cuse, Henry Winkler and festival founder Andrew Jenks.

Read more at News Day

10/27/13

Cathy Brennan, attorney, OUTS yet another Transgender High School Student

There have been many articles published about the Florence Colorado student who is being attacked by the right wing conservatives. There have been many intentional breaches of journalistic protocol along the way but only one that clearly endangered the youth at the center of this manufactured 'controversy'.

NBC KOAA in Colorado Springs published a very biased video "Transgender Student Causing Controversy" early on naming the transgender student. To date no other media, mainstream, or social has parroted that story or stooped that low to endanger this vulnerable young person's life.

All including the most vehement of anti transgender pundits have at least used a misgendered pseudonym when talking about our transgender student "Jane Doe".

Except one.

Cathy Brennan a TERF (Trans Exclusionaly Radical Feminist) on her Wordpress blog Gender Identity Watch". Brennan has posted her picture and republished the NBC video on Vimeo undoubtedly aware that if she put it on You Tube it would have violated terms of service.

But this isn't the first time Brennan has outed a transgender student.

Cathy Brennan, Lawyer, Maliciously OUTed a 17 Y.O. Transgender Youth To His High School June of 2012, then laughed at his attempts to apologize for making an unacceptable rape joke on twitter in his youthful zeal after being baited into it by? Yes Cathy Brennan.

Brennan tweeting as "GID watch":

You can help put a stop to Brennan's amplification outing of yet another transgender student by reporting her blog to wordpress.com/abuse. I reported Brennan for "content (that) promotes self-harm/suicide.

Transgender youth are especially vulnerable. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program reports that "More than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.*.

Report Brennan. Save a transgender youth's life.


Perla Lopez-Roque Transgender ICE detainee wins groundbreaking right to live freely in the USA

North American mainstream media does not show the reality of
of transgender life in Mexico. planetransgender rocked
viewers with this image in 2010 of a decapitated
transgender woman.
Perla Lopez-Roque came to San Diego hoping to escape the extreme violence of her home town of Villa Hemosa Mexico where she beaten and repeatedly raped by the police and the mayor.

Mayor Octavio Manuel Carrillo Castellanos and 17 others were later brutally murdered by drug gangs, many of their decapitated bodies hung from bridges.

Most transgender asylum seekers don't appeal a deportation order  order because of a lack of resources and legal representation.

Lopez-Roque broke the trend. She appealed  but lost her first bid for asylum in the US. The judge ruled that she “did not meet the burden of proof” that would show that the government acquiesced to her mistreatment because of her transgender status. The judge also said the she was a public hazard because of her HIV status and arrests for prostitution between 1990 and 2007. However in a ground breaking ruling she did win the right to appeal.

A federal immigration judge ruled Oct. 21 at a hearing in Los Angeles that the U.S. government could not expel 46-year-old Perla Lopez-Roque, who was seeking asylum on the grounds that her transgender status put her in danger in her native country.

Ms. Lopez-Roque left the court in tears repeatedly saying thank you.

Amicus brief from  The Center for HIV Law and Policy
"Pleadings and Briefs
The petitioner in this case is a transgender woman living with HIV who was arrested for offering sex for money. Although it is undisputed that she experienced "past persecution on account of a protected ground"—her transgender identity —the immigration judge improperly concluded that her HIV status, together with her arrest on sex work charges, trumps her imminent risk of persecution in Mexico and allows deportation. Based on misinformation and misconceptions about HIV, the IJ found that "[t]he type of disease also shows that the alien may be a danger to the community."

The Center for HIV Law and Policy and the organizations it represents on this brief raise two issues: the Immigration Judge ("IJ") erred in denying immigration relief based on the petitioner's HIV status, while simultaneously failing to consider how that status places her at imminent risk for future persecution in Mexico. Amici urged the Board to reverse the IJ's decision and grant Ms. Lopez Roque's application for withholding of removal; or, in the alternative, that the Board remand the case to the IJ with instructions that ensure she is not removed on the basis of her HIV status to Mexico, where she faces near-certain violence as a transgender person living with HIV."

Resource Bank and the Positive Justice Project.

Perla Lopez-Roque's attorny Peter Perkowski Discusses Win for Transgender Pro Bono Client Facing Deportation

Winston & Strawn partner Peter Perkowski was quoted in the Voice of OC article, “Judge: Transgender Detainee is Free to Live in U.S.,” published October 24, 2013.

Mr. Perkowski represented Wilfrido “Perla” Lopez-Roque, an undocumented Mexican transgender individual who faced deportation and was seeking asylum on the grounds that her transgender status put her in danger in her native country.

“In light of the ample evidence demonstrating widespread brutality against [gay/transgender] people,” Mr. Perkowski argued, deportation should be denied under the Convention Against Torture Treaty.
On October 21, a federal immigration judge ruled that the U.S. government could not deport Ms. Lopez-Roque and released her from federal custody. Mr. Perkowski said that the ruling should serve as a beacon of hope to other transgender individuals.

Mr. Perkowski recently received Public Counsel's Immigrants' Rights Project's Volunteer of the Year Award for his years of service in support of immigrant rights.


10/25/13

Mleuben Maccarthy Gay Ugandan beaten by police for paying for Mama's funeral


Gay Star News reported 19th of October that Mleuben Maccarthy leader of St Pauls Voice had been arrested and beaten by police after trying to pick up money sent to him by his partner to pay for his mothers funeral.

Maccarthy's mother known as "Mama Naomi" was very supportive of her gay son and was loved by the Ugandan LGBT community.

Maccarthy has just posted  he is returning to the police station to be interviewed about the beatings.

Pics of Mleuben Maccarthy his back he has been beaten up while in prison last week

Photo

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Second arrest made for the May beating of Hollywood transgender woman Vivian Diego

The second of four 'men' were arrested yesterday for the savage unprovoked attack on Hollywood transgender woman Vivian Diego. The five were video taped knocking her to the ground from behind then kicking and stomping on her unconscious (for all they knew dead) body. They were then filmed celebrating the attack with one of the slime actually kissing his arm as if his participation required any strength.

Ms. Diego suffered a broken jaw, a shattered cheekbone and two cracked ribs. Her jaw was wired shut, and she was hospitalized for seven days.

The police have not released the name of the second 'man' arrested telling CBS LA said more details will be released today.

Nicol Shakhnazaryan, 21, was arrested on felony battery charges June 20th by Hollywood Division detectives around 8 p.m. Thursday in the San Fernando Valley. Details surrounding his arrest were not released. Shakhnazaryan is being held on $50,000 bond.

A $25,000 dollar reward is offered for information leading to the arrest of other two 'men'. The FBI is aiding the LAPD in the search for the outstanding two suspects




10/24/13

Female Ford Models Elliot Sailors and Casey Leger are the man at work

Casey Legler one of only a few cisgender females working as a male model tells Time in the interview embedded below how she celebrates gender fluidity:
We have very specific ways in which we identify ourselves as male or female. Sometimes that can be very limiting. It would be a lovely place if we didn't necessarily judge or jump to conclusions if someone wants to wear pants or if someone wants to wear a dress.

Casey Legler might very well been alluding to the way Huffpost contributor Alex B wrote about her and Elliot Sailors, another female modeling male clothes for Ford in a some what less than celebratory article "Women Modelling Menswear: Cross-dressing for Models Who Wish to Work After the Age of Thirty"

Alex B wrote
What troubles me, however, is the fact that Sailors decided to turn herself into a 'male' model only because she could not get any more work as a female model at the age of thirty-one. It was a pragmatic decision motivated by the desire to continue to model and be distinctive as a model at an age when modelling, for women, is very difficult, due to age discrimination - which does not seem to exist for male models.

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