Protesters Among the Gay Tuxedoed Crowd

Cross posted from BeyondChron click title for original post
by Tommi Avicolli Mecca‚ Jul. 28‚ 2008


This is one for the history books,” said Robert Haaland, a longtime San Francisco transgender activist. He couldn’t be more on the money. A coalition of groups, including Pride at Work, And Castro 4 All, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, called a boycott and managed to get not only local politicians, but also the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) dinner’s keynote speaker to cancel at the last moment. In the end, HRC, the national gay group that last Fall dropped transgenders from coverage in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), learned the power of the queer and transgender communities in San Francisco.

Queer issues take a global stage at the United Nations

By Emily Geminder

29 July 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Of the more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations holding consultative status to the United Nations, only a handful address gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex issues. This week saw an incremental but significant step towards change: two groups, COC Netherlands and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Spain (FELGTB), gained admittance to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
The impact of United Nations policy bears far-reaching implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex individuals everywhere, and the community’s marginalization within the international framework has come under increasing scrutiny. According to South Africa based Gender Dynamix, Africa’s first transgender rights organization, discrimination against individuals who do not conform to conventional gender expression places them at high risk for HIV infection, compounding the impotence of national and global policies that fail to take sexual and gender minorities into account.