Lesbians In The News

[*Anya*]

Sorry, I meant to post this in feminism, not the lesbian zone. She's in 4th grade.

I should not post on no sleep and with acute asthma....

Originally Posted by *Anya*

Shaye wanted to change the world. Instead she had to change her oral

Sunday, February 08, 2015 by: Carol Martin
Shaye, who is a grade 4 student at Tarentorus Public School, is so passionate about feminism that she decided to do her oral on that topic.

“She first said she wanted to it on something from history,” says her mom, Linsay Ambeault. “So I started telling her about the suffrage movement.”

That captivated Shaye's interest and she poured her energy into writing what she thought would be the best oral she'd ever written, maybe an oral that would take her to the gym – possibly even the city finals.

But, when her teacher, Mike Chudoba, gave it back to her with his notes, Shaye was disappointed to learn she would have to remove a paragraph that talked about rape statistics and Ontario's proposed sex education curriculum from it before she could present it to her class.

The paragraph Mr. Chudoba said had to go follows:

One out of five women and girls will be raped or assaulted by a man, and less than 1% of rapists are held accountable by a court of law. It was not until this year, 2015, that Ontario's curriculum began teaching kids like me the concept of consent, which is the right to say no.

The issue of teaching children about consent is being discussed in Ontario's parliament after Premier Kathleen Wynne directed it to be included in the planned update of the province's sexual education curriculum, so what Shaye was talking about in her second sentence hasn't happened yet.

But she and her mom believe it's important that kids her age understand they have a right to say 'no' to adults and other kids, and that their bodies are their own.

Premier Wynne would probably agree.

"With cases of sexual harassment and sexual violence in the spotlight, Wynne directed the Ministry of Education to include things such as healthy relationships and consent in the new learning documents, which will be used in schools across the province this fall," says a Toronto Star article original published January 7. "Wynne has asked Education Minister Liz Sandals 'to finalize a new health and physical education curriculum that gets at some of the root causes of gender inequality, and starts at the very earliest stages to develop an understanding of healthy relationships and consent.'"

Shaye's mom is proud of her daughter's obvious passion about feminism and about protecting kids from sexual predators.

“She asked me if anyone had ever changed the world with a speech,” said Ambeault.

But, not all parents want their children to know about rape or sex in primary school.

"The updated version [of the curriculum] was first released in 2010, but shelved after complaints from a few religious groups about children learning about homosexuality in Grade 3, discussions of puberty in Grade 6 and, in Grade 7, talk of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and possible discussion about oral or anal sex," says the Star.

When Shaye asked her teacher why she had to remove the paragraph from her oral he sent her to the principal's office to get her answer.

Tarentorus principal, Brent Vallee, told her the subject of rape and the word vagina were not age-appropriate for her classmates.

“He told me it's the first time he's ever had to deal with a student writing an oral on a subject too advanced for them,” said Shaye.

We'd love to tell you first-hand what Mr. Vallee said about it, but he was pretty adamant about not having any comments on it.

Shaye said Mr. Vallee also told her the oral might have been fine as it was in a different school.

“Why can't he make Tarentorus the different school,” she said. “Some children might have been and they shouldn't be afraid to say they were raped.”

She believes her oral would help raise that topic and let kids have a chance to talk to someone about what happened to them but, if they aren't even allowed to say the word they're probably going to feel some shame about it.

Ambeault said she is disappointed in how things went, even though she empathizes with Mr. Vallee's position between parents who might not want their nine-year-old children coming home and asking them what rape is.

Shaye has been kind enough to let us share her oral with our readers.

“More people are going to hear about this through here than would even if I went to zone finals with it,” she said.

Unfortunately, Shaye didn't make it to the gym with her oral this year but she hopes it will make a difference to her classmates who heard it.

“It could be like that pond thing, you know, with the ripples going out,” she said.

The full and unedited text from her oral follows.

*************************DZCZ.
Feminism
By: Shaye Brianna Moran

I am here to talk about the F word. The other F word, Feminism. In order to be considered a feminist you only need to be on board with one idea; that all humans, male and female, should have equal rights under the law. Feminism itself, is the radical idea that women are people.

First-wave feminism originated with the suffrage movement, which recognized that women were voiceless. They could not vote, nor own property. By risking imprisonment and their own lives suffragists gained the right to vote less than 100 years ago in North America, though in some countries women still can't vote in elections.

Women made huge advances during the 20th century. During World War II women proved how strong they were, by filling roles left unoccupied by men who had gone to war. My great-grandmother worked as a brick layer at Algoma Steel during the war. These women were symbolized by the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter. Though society now knew how powerful women were, women still did not have the same rights as men. For example, my grandmother was not allowed to wear pants to school or work and female teachers were barred from teaching while pregnant.

In the early 1960's, the second-wave of feminism or women's liberation movement began. Women were no longer expected to quit their jobs in favour of raising children and staying in the kitchen. Today, women are no longer the property of men, but we still have a long way to go.

Did you know that 603 million women still live in countries where hitting your wife is not considered a crime? In Saudi Arabia, women are still not allowed to have a driver's license. In some countries, women can't go out in public without their face being covered.

{One out of five women and girls will be raped or assaulted by a man, and less than 1% of rapists are held accountable by a court of law. It was not until this year, 2015, that Ontario's curriculum began teaching kids like me the concept of consent, which is the right to say no.}

Did you know that less than a quarter of the world's countries have ever had a female head of state? Only 21% of managers are women and there are currently only 20 women serving in the US senate compared to 80 men. Women get paid 23% less than men, and women who received straight A's in college are paid the same as men who received C's.

Feminists are not aiming to make women stronger, we already know we're strong, we just want society to see that too. Being a feminist doesn't mean that you think women deserve special rights, but that you know we deserve equal ones.

In my lifetime, women are not expected to receive equal pay until 2058, when I am 53 years old and nearing retirement. I put it to you, that is not soon enough! Women, our time is now. As Elsa from Frozen sang, “It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through, no right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free!”

************************http://www.sootoday.com/content/news...ls.asp?c=86346

[*Anya*]

When Being a Lesbian Makes You a Target

By Trish Bendix on February 9, 2015

In 1988, 28-year old Rebecca Wight and her girlfriend, Claudia Brenner, planned to hike the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania when they encountered a man who would end Rebecca’s life. Stephen Roy Carr watched the women at their campsite, and followed them on their trip, as they set up their tent, kissed and mistakenly thought they were alone. Stephen was 82 feet away with a .22 caliber rifle, and he shot at them eight times, injuring Claudia and killing Rebecca.

Eight years later, in 1996, 24-year-old Julianne Williams and 26-year-old Lollie Winans took their Golden Retriever, Taj, up to Virginia’s Skyline Drive on the Appalachian Trail. The women were found bound and gagged with their throats slit, the case unsolved for years—until Darrell David Rice was indicted in 2002, initially saying he targeted the couple because they were gay, and they “deserved to die because they were lesbian.” Darrell was proved innocent, though, and the murders are still unsolved.

In 2009, Teresa Butz and Jennifer Hopper were sleeping in their Seattle home when Isaiah Kalebu broke inside and brutally raped and stabbed them until Teresa died and Jennifer managed to escape. In court, Isaiah said he’d watched the women for days, and “I was there and I was told by my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to attack my enemies, and I did so.”

These are only three stories of women in same-sex relationships being targeted by men in the last four decades, and now we have another fatal incident to add to the growing list of violent tragedies. Last Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Lisa Trubnikova was shot and killed after her ex-coworker, Coast Guardsman Adrian Loya, walked into Lisa’s Massachusetts home with her wife, Anna Trubnikova, and opened fire. Anna is alive, but hospitalized with serious injuries.

According to Lisa’s family members, Adrian had been “fixated” on her since they worked together in Alaska. He knew the two women were together, as a couple, and purposefully checked into a nearby motel just prior to the shooting. While this has yet to be considered a hate crime, it is very clear that Adrian’s motive was similar to those of the aforementioned murderers: These lesbians deserve to die.

These and two of the most recent fatal attacks on lesbian couples in Texas (Kristene Chapa and Mollie Olgin in 2012, Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson in 2013) have been not deemed hate crimes. Claudia Brenner, who survived her attack, has turned her tragedy into activism and spoken out since about violence against gay women, which she certainly considers a hate crime.

I always believed that it was a matter of harassment, not life and death, that it was something that happened to gay men, late at night, outside of seedy bars. I always thought that life-endangering oppression happened to people different than me. To heal, I had to acknowledge the world as a place that includes the possibility of getting shot and killed at any moment.

It wasn’t until 2009 that the United States passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which included sexual orientation in the protections of the federal hate crime law. And sadly, for good reason, as sexual orientation is second to race as perceived motivation listed by the FBI. Considering hate crimes are often under-reported, the number is likely even larger than the 20.2 percent that were victimized in 2013. While hate crimes can vary from hurled slurs from strangers to someone tagging “DYKE” on a lesbian-owned business, it does seem that the highly-violent situations involving deaths of gay women are usually not perceived as such. Despite often being referred to as “hate crimes,” the perpetrators are rarely charged with such. Isiah Kalebu is in prison for life, convicted of aggravated murder. Stephen Roy Carr also received a life sentence for first-degree murder. This past June, David M. Strickland was charged with capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault in the case of Kristene and Mollie, but police decided there was “no evidence that the attack was motivated by their sexual orientation.”

That begs the question, what kind of evidence is necessary to charge and convict someone of a hate crime? In each of these case’s, it would seem their relationships had direct effects on why they were targeted, although surely police or lawyers might argue otherwise: Crimes of jealousy, crimes of passion, crimes against defenseless, easy targets like two women. But hate? Apparently that’s harder to prove, and prosecutors are reluctant because so much bias still exists. For example, it might be easier to have a jury side with your defendant if she’s facing someone who tried to kill her because she’s a woman he wanted to be with, not because she’s a lesbian. That lesbian stuff just really screws things up if you have any conservative gay haters in the town you’re picking your jury members from. In Claudia’s case, she didn’t tell even the cops she and Rebecca were a couple in fear they wouldn’t help her.

Lisa told Adrian several times she was not interested in him, yet he persisted. Lisa wanted to handle the situation herself, and did not go to the Coast Guard during her time spent there being harassed. We now live in a time where Lisa could not be fired for being gay in the Coast Guard, but could still face harassment or other negative repercussions from reporting a male co-worker. We live in a time, still, where going hiking with your girlfriend could mean you have a target on your back if you cross paths with a particularly hateful man. A time when even if you are at home with your partner, sleeping, you might be being stalked by a mad man across the street. A time when that man could be your homophobic father, who would rather see you dead than gay.

As a community, we have made so much progress in the last 27 years since Rebecca and Claudia were shot. We have rights some of us never dreamt of having, ones that Lisa and Anna all-too-briefly enjoyed. But we’re still facing a persistent evil that demands more attention, and our speaking up about it when it happens to us or women we know. No one should have to suffer through the things that start out creepy because we’re conditioned to it. We’re so used to dealing with sexual innuendo and unwanted advances from men that make us uncomfortable, and they continue because we so often roll our eyes and drop it, fearing for our safety if we fight back. We deserve protection and because of survivors like Claudia Brenner and Jennifer Hopper, who so bravely tell their stories and want women like themselves—like us—to use our voices and speak out against these things that happen to us: Verbal abuse, sexual violence and things that you know, in your heart, are wrong. As Jennifer wrote in her Seattle Stranger piece “I Would Like You to Know My Name:”

All I can say is that I think there is tremendous power in testifying, in saying, “This happened to me.” And if you can, showing that you have a name, a voice, and—hey, I know, this is one of the hardest parts because it’s more than I’m ready to do right now—a face.

…sometimes crazy stuff happens and we’re called on to be brave, and I don’t think I’ve done anything different than anyone else would do. Anyway, bravery isn’t always a solitary thing. All these people in my life have helped. You, by listening to my story, have helped.

Look our for yourselves, and each other.

HATE CRIMES TERESA BUTZ

http://www.afterellen.com/people/414...n-makes-target

[homoe]

February 10, 2015 at 6:03 AM
Slurs written on woman’s body in Tacoma hate crime attack
Posted by Lisa Cowan
The Associated Press

TACOMA — A woman was choked and stabbed and had homophobic slurs written on her body with a marker in an attack early Sunday in Tacoma.

Police are looking for the man responsible for the hate crime.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked while looking for her dog that had slipped out of her house about 3 a.m. She was followed into an alley by the man who made homophobic slurs during the assault.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool says the woman is recovering from stab wounds to her arm, chest and thigh.

The incident will be the subject of a forum Saturday at the Rainbow Center, a support center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Tacoma

[firegal]

Originally Posted by homoe

February 10, 2015 at 6:03 AM
Slurs written on woman’s body in Tacoma hate crime attack
Posted by Lisa Cowan
The Associated Press

TACOMA — A woman was choked and stabbed and had homophobic slurs written on her body with a marker in an attack early Sunday in Tacoma.

Police are looking for the man responsible for the hate crime.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked while looking for her dog that had slipped out of her house about 3 a.m. She was followed into an alley by the man who made homophobic slurs during the assault.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool says the woman is recovering from stab wounds to her arm, chest and thigh.

The incident will be the subject of a forum Saturday at the Rainbow Center, a support center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Tacoma

He was caught and is in pierce county jail.

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by homoe

February 10, 2015 at 6:03 AM
Slurs written on woman’s body in Tacoma hate crime attack
Posted by Lisa Cowan
The Associated Press

TACOMA — A woman was choked and stabbed and had homophobic slurs written on her body with a marker in an attack early Sunday in Tacoma.

Police are looking for the man responsible for the hate crime.

The 45-year-old woman was attacked while looking for her dog that had slipped out of her house about 3 a.m. She was followed into an alley by the man who made homophobic slurs during the assault.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool says the woman is recovering from stab wounds to her arm, chest and thigh.

The incident will be the subject of a forum Saturday at the Rainbow Center, a support center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Tacoma

Originally Posted by firegal

He was caught and is in pierce county jail.

Thanks so much for the update.

[Kobi]

Lesley Gore, a pop singer who first entered the AM airwaves and the American consciousness in 1963, died of cancer Monday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, PEOPLE has confirmed. She was 68.

At 17, the Brooklyn-born, Tenafly, New Jersey-raised former Lesley Sue Goldstein wailed in a hit single produced by Quincy Jones that "It's My Party" and she would cry if she wanted, whining of a rival, "She's a Fool," and declaiming, "You Don't Own Me."

The catchy beat and voice led to four Top 5 singles in 1963 – and a 1965 smash by a then-brand-new composer enjoying his first hit: "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," by Marvin Hamlisch.

Besides her brother and mother, Gore is survived by her partner of more than three decades, Lois Sasson.

http://www.people.com/article/lesley...s-topheadlines

[*Anya*]

By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press 11:23 p.m. EST February 18, 2015

Sitting in the pediatrician's office with their 6-day-old daughter, the two moms couldn't wait to meet the doctor they had picked out months before.

The Roseville pediatrician — one of many they had interviewed — seemed the perfect fit: She took a holistic approach to treating children. She used natural oils and probiotics. And she knew they were lesbians.

But as Jami and Krista Contreras sat in the exam room, waiting to be seen for their newborn's first checkup, another pediatrician entered the room and delivered a major blow: The doctor they were hoping for had a change of heart. After "much prayer," she decided that she couldn't treat their baby because they are lesbians

"I was completely dumbfounded," recalled Krista Contreras, the baby's biological mother. "We just looked at each other and said, 'Did we hear that correctly?' .... When we tell people about it, they don't believe us. They say, '(Doctors) can't do that. That's not legal.' And we say, 'Yes it is.'"

The Contrerases of Oak Park are going public with their story to raise awareness about the discrimination that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continues to face. There is no federal or Michigan law that explicitly prohibits discrimination against LGBT individuals.

For months, the couple kept quiet about what happened to them and their baby — Bay Windsor Contreras — at Eastlake Pediatrics last October.

But the pain and frustration wouldn't go away. So they broke their silence.

"We want people to know that this is happening to families. This is really happening," said Jami Contreras, 30, who was blindsided that fall day in the doctor's office. "It was embarrassing. It was humiliating ... It's just wrong."

Doctor apologizes

The pediatrician at issue is Vesna Roi, 49, who has been practicing pediatric medicine for 19 years.

Roi said that she could not comment on the case, citing the federal HIPPA law, which requires medical providers to protect the privacy of patients. But she did defend her commitment to pediatric medicine and helping children.

"My life is taking care of the babies," Roi told the Free Press on Tuesday. "I love my families, my patients. I love my kids. And I have become very close with all my patients."

Roi, meanwhile, has apologized to Jami and Krista Contreras in a handwritten letter, which was obtained by the Free Press. It states:

"Dear Jami & Krista, I am writing this letter of apology as I feel that it is important and necessary. I never meant to hurt either of you. After much prayer following your prenatal (visit), I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients."

The letter, dated Feb. 9, did not explain why Roi felt that way, nor did it mention anything about the two women being lesbians. It did, however, state that the Contrerases were "always welcome in our office" and that they could still get care from another pediatrician who was on staff.

Roi also apologized for not telling the Contrerases about her decision in person.

"I felt that it was an exciting time for the two of you and I felt that if I came in and shared my decision, it would take away much of the excitement. That was my mistake," the letter stated. "I should have spoken with you that day."

The letter concluded:

"Please know that I believe that God gives us free choice and I would never judge anyone based on what they do with that free choice. Again, I am very sorry for the hurt and angry feelings that were created by this. I hope that you can accept my apology."

Decision not illegal

Krista and Jami Contreras are not suing Roi. They concede that Roi did nothing illegal — which is precisely what they have a problem with: There are few laws on the books that protect the LGBT community from discrimination.

"There's no law that prohibits it," Wayne State University Constitutional Law Professor Robert Sedler said of Roi's actions. "It's the same as a florist refusing to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding."

Currently, 22 states have laws that prohibit doctors from discriminating against someone based on their sexual orientation. Michigan is not one of these states.

Michigan does have its own anti-discrimination law known as the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. But it doesn't cover LGBT individuals. Neither do federal employment laws included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibit hiring or employment discrimination on the basis of a person's"race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," not sexual orientation.

For Jami and Krista Contreras, the medical policies are comforting, but they're not enough. It's time, they said, for the laws to change so that no LGBT person experiences what they did that fall day in the pediatrician's office. Roi, they said, gave no signs that she was opposed to their lifestyle when they met her. She told them to schedule an appointment when the baby was born, they said. And they did just that.

Then came the blow.

"You're discriminating against a baby?" Jami Contreras said. "It's just wrong."

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...irth/23640315/