Pride Month is here, and JezeRoot is back!
This month, we celebrate the beauty and vastness of the LGBTQ community and its contributions to this world—and what better way to kick it off than with a conversation about pride?
After all, the word “pride” means many things to many different people. In the African-American community, we often link a sense of pride with our ingenuity and resilience: “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.”
But what does it mean to have pride as a black member of the LGBTQ community?
Category: Sexual Equality
Pro-Choice Activists Take Abortion Pills Outside Belfast Courthouse to Protest Draconian Abortion Law
On Thursday, a few days after the Republic of Ireland voted in a referendum to overturn its nearly absolute ban on abortion, pro-choice advocates in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still outlawed under Victorian-era law, staged a bold and creative protest of the oppressive status quo.
The Guardian reports that activists took what they claimed were abortion pills outside court buildings in Belfast, and in front of news cameras. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where abortion is outlawed.
Trans Migrant Roxana Hernández Dies In ICE Detention
A 33-year-old transgender Honduran woman who was part of the so-called refugee caravan has died after being detained by immigration authorities.
Immigration officials identified the woman as Jeffry Hernandez, but LGBTQ immigrant rights advocates with the Transgender Law Center said she was an asylum seeker named Roxana Hernández.
A representative with the group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which organized the caravan, confirmed Hernández was a member of the caravan.
Wall Street Journal Worries About ‘Illicit’ Sex Workers Hurting Multi-Million-Dollar Dating Sites
As Heidi Vogt and John D. McKinnon write, FOSTA has led to the shuttering of sites used by sex workers—and “some worry that could drive the pay-for-sex market to legitimate dating platforms.” They continue to explain, paraphrasing a legal expert, that “it could easily create liability for legitimate services if sex workers simply use their platforms.” The article is filled with moralizing language that poses “legitimate dating platforms” and “legitimate services” opposite “prostitutes.” It’s Match.com versus “bad behavior.” OKCupid versus “illicit behavior.” Tinder versus “those peddling sex.” Peddling sex! I get it, it can be hard to find synonyms for sex work—a phrase the Wall Street Journal article does not once use—but the word choices here are revealing, my dudes. (Note that the Wall Street Journal editorial board came out strong against FOSTA—but their argument had nothing to do with sex workers’ rights.)
via Wall Street Journal Worries About ‘Illicit’ Sex Workers Hurting Multi-Million-Dollar Dating Sites
Women Are Still Fighting for the Right to Take Collective Action Against Uber
Women who say their Uber drivers sexually harassed and assaulted them are still fighting the company for the right to bring their class action lawsuit to court. The firm representing the women, Wigdor LLP, filed a legal brief on Tuesday to challenge Uber’s arbitration policies, which continue to force many people with claims against the company behind closed doors.
“Uber duped the media and public when it claimed to allow Jane Does 1-9 access to court two weeks ago,” Jeanne Christensen, partner at Wigdor LLP, told Gizmodo in a statement. “At the same time that Uber was making its public ‘announcement’ about not forcing these victims to arbitrate assault and battery claims, its lawyers were busy filing a motion to compel to arbitration all of the other claims in the lawsuit. If successful, Uber achieves the result it wanted all along – to silence female victims’ voices on a collective basis. Such a result also allows Uber to keep secret the data about the countless other incidents of sexual assault by Uber drivers.”
via Women Are Still Fighting for the Right to Take Collective Action Against Uber
‘I knew I would face trans abuse on TV’ – BBC News
Professor Stephen Whittle has been campaigning for transgender rights since the 1970s. He reflects on how society has changed since then.
He looks at some of his past media appearances in the BBC archive, including on the Kilroy programme and debating with Dr Georgina Somerset – reportedly the first openly intersex person in the UK.
BBC’s Martha Kearney recalls ‘humiliating’ harassment – BBC News
BBC presenter Martha Kearney has recalled the “horrible and humiliating” sexual harassment she experienced as a young journalist.
Kearney, a new host on Radio 4’s Today programme, revealed men touched her bottom while she was an LBC Westminster correspondent in the 1980s.
She said she regrets not confronting her bosses, and hopes the #MeToo campaign will make a difference.
“I wish I’d felt stronger, less intimidated,” she told the Radio Times.
“But in my 20s bosses were powerful people.”
via BBC’s Martha Kearney recalls ‘humiliating’ harassment – BBC News
Illinois Waited 46 Years to Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, but What’s Four Decades Between Friends
The Illinois House voted on Wednesday to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, following approval last month in the state Senate. The state is now the 37th to do so, following Nevada in 2017. What this means is that we’re now one state away from maybe enshrining women’s equal rights in the United States Constitution, a mere….. 231 years after the document was first ratified. Hey alright, ladies!
The ERA—which declares, rather simply, that the “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex”—was originally proposed in 1921, approved by the House of Representatives in 1971, and then by the Senate in 1972. Congress then sent it to the states for ratification, and set a deadline for a vote: June 30, 1982, which was 36 years ago. This means that, should another state ratify it, Congress would need to remove the deadline in order for it to become the 28th amendment. Given that Congress is full of misogynists, I can see that being a real fight!
Multiple Women Say They Were Sexually Abused By Their Legendary Equestrian Coach
The Chronicle report, by Mollie Bailey, quoted five women who say Williams abused them in ways ranging from talking about his sex life to forcibly kissing them to trying to force one’s face onto his penis. The Times talked to 38 “former students, trainers, grooms, equestrian officials and members of the Flintridge Riding Club,” where Williams taught.
via Multiple Women Say They Were Sexually Abused By Their Legendary Equestrian Coach
A Conversation with Michaela Mendelsohn, the Fast-Food CEO Determined to Bring Jobs to the Trans…
Ever since, she’s been a major force within the LGBTQ community, particularly as the founder of TransCanWork, a nationwide effort to help “transgender people thrive in the workplace”; and vice chair of The Trevor Project, an organization that provides “crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.” In addition, she was named the National Face of Diversity by the restaurant industry earlier this year, and next month, she’ll serve as the Grand Marshal of the 2018 L.A. Pride Parade.
via A Conversation with Michaela Mendelsohn, the Fast-Food CEO Determined to Bring Jobs to the Trans…