LGBT Rights & Issues Thread, V3

[Oneracon]

It feels like their very existence just smacks you in the face with the fact that CBS, an organization nominally independent but entirely funded by tax dollars, thinks that all queer men are too diseased (or likely to be diseased) to actually give but... it's totally ok because you can just get your friends to donate their clean straight blood on your behalf! #Ally

Instead of these initiatives that do nothing but emphasize their exclusion of queer men, and other men who have sex with men regardless of their identity, they should be focused on reforming a blood system through something like a neutral screening criteria that doesn't automatically assume we're all HIV-riddled.

I support blood donations, I want Canada to have a strong domestic blood supply so that we don't need to rely on dubious imports of blood products... which is what actually caused the tainted blood scandal in the first place

I mean, I guess a bit, but knowing some of the people behind my city's (and province's) queer activism, this will be very politicised -- as it should be. The thing is, it's being run by the Pride organisation in partnership with CBS outside of normal hours, and essentially we're publicly announcing that we're not allowed to donate, and we're asking our friends and allies to give their blood in our place. I feel like it would have a lot less impact if it were just individuals doing this, but because it's an activist organisation getting CBS to do this separately from their regular work, I think it has a lot of merit.

I do see your point, and hopefully there are plenty of opportunities to drive home to CBS that they need to stop the blood ban (and yes five years is still a ban). If it's going to be politicized, then it would definitely be a good idea.

On the other hand, when I was coordinator of my campus group we had a CBS rep ask if we would endorse and promote an "Ally Clinic" at the local Pride... which was unanimously rejected by our Board of Directors because we didn't like our name being used on an event that emphasized the exclusion of queer men. One of my directors actually had a good point about how it especially alienates men who are not necessarily open about their orientation because it would require them to disclose their sexual activity to friends or family to get them to participate.

[Newport 100]

Ive generally donated blood regardless, it just means lying on one question of the test. Its still extremely insulting to be told I cant donate blood because ive sucked a bunch of dick.

[Oneracon]

Ive generally donated blood regardless, it just means lying on one question of the test. Its still extremely insulting to be told I cant donate blood because ive sucked a bunch of dick.

Well tread carefully. I don't know what the blood groups in your region do, but in Canada if they find out you lied (for example because you contract an STI, it shows up on the routine screening, and they track you down to inform you) Canadian Blood Services sues you for "negligent misrepresentation".

They've done it several times. Successfully.

[Expectareaction]

I confess however I feel a bit guilty applying the LGBTQ label, as it wasn't cans of alphabet soup that were attacked, it was lovely people, fellow human beings, nothing more and nothing less, with the potential greatness that all of us have.

No, it was absolutely an attack against queer people. As long as cishets politicise our lives, they have no right to depoliticise our deaths.

That you would have me view you as something other than a fellow human being in absolutely no way obligates me to do so, and the mere fact that 99 people were massacred because someone viewed them as something other than fellow human beings should be enough to dissuade such segregationist thinking, no matter how big the political chip on their shoulder might be.

[Nature-Spirits]

No, it was absolutely an attack against queer people. As long as cishets politicise our lives, they have no right to depoliticise our deaths.

That you would have me view you as something other than a fellow human being in absolutely no way obligates me to do so, and the mere fact that 99 people were massacred because someone viewed them as something other than fellow human beings should be enough to dissuade such segregationist thinking, no matter how big the political chip on their shoulder might be.

It's not that we're fundamentally different from other people. It's simply that these people were targeted specifically because they were queer. They were the victims of a hate crime because they were queer. They died because they were queer. To say, "Oh, I don't really want to think of the victims as queer, they're just people" erases that fact. It is imperative to recognise that this was a hate crime targeting queer people.

This massacre was a political act. In refusing to acknowledge that, people deny us our grief, our fear, our anger. Our lives are made political by queerphobia, and when our deaths are caused by queerphobia, you cannot depoliticise them. These were political deaths.

And viewing people as queer does not equate to not viewing us as fellow humans beings. We are queer. We are also human beings. We are queer human beings. The victims were queer human beings. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Ultimately, it wasn't these individuals specifically who were attacked. This attack was on all LGBTQ+ people. That's why it has such a great impact on us; because we're all thinking, "That could have been me." The killer, presumably, had little problem with any of these individuals aside from their queerness. They would not have died had they not been queer.

I'm sorry if this post seems a bit jumbled or if some of what I'm saying seems redundant. I'm still processing it all.

[Vassenor]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

[Sungai Pusat]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

Stupid around the world, hooray.

Can't wait for it to reach Asia soon. Should be a blast.



"lesbian rights are women’s rights. We are not trans"

...um, wonderful I guess. Just... great justification towards these kinds of bills, yup.

[USS Monitor]

That you would have me view you as something other than a fellow human being in absolutely no way obligates me to do so, and the mere fact that 99 people were massacred because someone viewed them as something other than fellow human beings should be enough to dissuade such segregationist thinking, no matter how big the political chip on their shoulder might be.

It's not that we're fundamentally different from other people. It's simply that these people were targeted specifically because they were queer. They were the victims of a hate crime because they were queer. They died because they were queer. To say, "Oh, I don't really want to think of the victims as queer, they're just people" erases that fact. It is imperative to recognise that this was a hate crime targeting queer people.

This massacre was a political act. In refusing to acknowledge that, people deny us our grief, our fear, our anger. Our lives are made political by queerphobia, and when our deaths are caused by queerphobia, you cannot depoliticise them. These were political deaths.

And viewing people as queer does not equate to not viewing us as fellow humans beings. We are queer. We are also human beings. We are queer human beings. The victims were queer human beings. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Ultimately, it wasn't these individuals specifically who were attacked. This attack was on all LGBTQ+ people. That's why it has such a great impact on us; because we're all thinking, "That could have been me." The killer, presumably, had little problem with any of these individuals aside from their queerness. They would not have died had they not been queer.

I'm sorry if this post seems a bit jumbled or if some of what I'm saying seems redundant. I'm still processing it all.

I get what you're saying. You might feel jumbled, but you are making sense.

[Herrebrugh]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

I just hope our dykes can hold back the stupid wave

[Val Halla]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

Looks like a bunch of "concerned" old women.

[Anywhere Else But Here]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

I just hope our dykes can hold back the stupid wave

But it's dykes that are to blame...
I'm gay, I can use that word.

[Oneracon]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

Ugh, the TERFs are everywhere.

(At least based on the type of rhetoric I'm assuming they're TERFs)

[Val Halla]

Anti-trans backlash reaches UK as protesters demand British ‘bathroom ban’

Looks like the stupid has reached this side of the atlantic too.

Ugh, the TERFs are everywhere.

(At least based on the type of rhetoric I'm assuming they're TERFs)

Seem to fit the whole deal with them.

[Val Halla]

Interesting news?

[Expectareaction]

That you would have me view you as something other than a fellow human being in absolutely no way obligates me to do so, and the mere fact that 99 people were massacred because someone viewed them as something other than fellow human beings should be enough to dissuade such segregationist thinking, no matter how big the political chip on their shoulder might be.

It's not that we're fundamentally different from other people. It's simply that these people were targeted specifically because they were queer. They were the victims of a hate crime because they were queer. They died because they were queer. To say, "Oh, I don't really want to think of the victims as queer, they're just people" erases that fact. It is imperative to recognise that this was a hate crime targeting queer people.

This massacre was a political act. In refusing to acknowledge that, people deny us our grief, our fear, our anger. Our lives are made political by queerphobia, and when our deaths are caused by queerphobia, you cannot depoliticise them. These were political deaths.

And viewing people as queer does not equate to not viewing us as fellow humans beings. We are queer. We are also human beings. We are queer human beings. The victims were queer human beings. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Ultimately, it wasn't these individuals specifically who were attacked. This attack was on all LGBTQ+ people. That's why it has such a great impact on us; because we're all thinking, "That could have been me." The killer, presumably, had little problem with any of these individuals aside from their queerness. They would not have died had they not been queer.

I'm sorry if this post seems a bit jumbled or if some of what I'm saying seems redundant. I'm still processing it all.

Yes, they were targeted because of some arbitrary facet of their being.
That however is precisely the reason the reducing of people to talking points is so wrong.
My initial post in this thread was just that, recognizing these human beings who were killed, my brothers and sisters, as just that, nothing more and nothing less. The other poster decided that these individuals needed to be pigeon-held into some category that hardly represents the entirety of their personage, and is just another way to create "otherness".

The attacker saw them as just "queers"... That anyone in the LGBT+ community would advise me to follow that type of thinking is sad. Ill view them as people just like me, dehumanizing people because of their harmless X-difference to me is not my bag.

[White Sox]

Mexico legalizes same-sex marriage across each state.

Honestly they should be focusing on more bigger domestic issues.

[Anywhere Else But Here]

Mexico legalizes same-sex marriage across each state.

Honestly they should be focusing on more bigger domestic issues.

That story is a year old. And how much focus do you imagine it takes? "Okay, and I'll just sign he- Oh my God! While I was distracted we lost the drug war! Shit."

[Oneracon]

Mexico legalizes same-sex marriage across each state.

Honestly they should be focusing on more bigger domestic issues.

Bigger domestic issues like how their calendar seems to be a year behind the rest of the world? Maybe they were just really won over by Trudeau and "Because it's 2015"

[Freefall11111]

Mexico legalizes same-sex marriage across each state.

Honestly they should be focusing on more bigger domestic issues.

Because governments can't multi-task?

[USS Monitor]

Interesting news?

Good news.

[Geilinor]

Woman sues the Chinese government over a textbook calling homosexuality a "disorder". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36545899

[Arcturus Novus]

Woman sues the Chinese government over a textbook calling homosexuality a "disorder". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36545899

Power to her. Shocking that the Chinese gov't still has such conservative views toward this in 2016.

[Oneracon]

Woman sues the Chinese government over a textbook calling homosexuality a "disorder". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36545899

Power to her. Shocking that the Chinese gov't still has such conservative views toward this in 2016.

Which is interesting since China did actually stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness 15 years ago. Baby steps helped along by the occasional lawsuit.

[Geilinor]

Power to her. Shocking that the Chinese gov't still has such conservative views toward this in 2016.

Which is interesting since China did actually stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness 15 years ago. Baby steps helped along by the occasional lawsuit.

It could be an old textbook but it seems like the government decides which textbooks can be used in universities.

[White Sox]

Mexico legalizes same-sex marriage across each state.

Honestly they should be focusing on more bigger domestic issues.

Because governments can't multi-task?

Never said that but there's a bigger issue in Mexico that should take precedent over this